Ok, I have to draw a line on this one Sam ... At 05:36 PM 10/27/98 -0800, Sam wrote: There IS a huge distinction, there is no such thing as a "fair price." Its a myth, it don't exist, deal with it. If this "schlub" as you so affectionately refer to them knew about your thrift store (and I can guarantee you he will) then you won't find Atari's in thrift stores and you won't find them at swap meets and the _only_ way to get one will be to pay more than what some other "schlub" is willing to pay. And if the price is too rich for you then you won't own one. What's a "fair" price for a Picasso? a Rembrandt? That is exactly what a market IS and it is actually _incredibly_ fair. Without external intervention it will settle on a price that people are willing to pay. To use the 1200XL example.. Word will get around that a 1200XL goes for 600 on Ebay, so enterprising folks who have been in thrift stores will start scrounging around for them, and then they will all put them up on eBay and the large number of them will cause the price to come down, probably way down but it may not get down to a level you are comfortable paying. For heaven's sake, you think there is a "fair" price for a house in Silicon Valley? Of course not, the MARKET supports a median house price that is well above what any ordinary mortal could pay for, but only because there are enough people willing to pay that price. When people said, "This is f__ ridicululous!" in 1991 guess what, houses stayed on the market until the price came down. When I bought my house I offered nearly 100K UNDER the asking price, got the house and it STILL lost 15K in value over the next couple of years! Now its going back up, great, but that will change when the guys from eBay who got rich on the IPO have all bought there houses. Economics, not just an idea it's a discipline that actually predicts these things pretty accurately... --Chuck