benjoshua wrote in New Candidate: Silliest Auction Price of the Year:
Yeah, I'm not paying that much for modules, especially ones I can't read because their are in glorified Glad Wrap.  However, if someone wants to collect and pay for this stuff, that's their prerogative.

When I played Yugioh and Pokemon when my kids were younger, someone derisively called our fun "cardboard crack."  He had a point.  There was a certain madness to paying $100.00 for some cards and ten cents for others.  I tried to keep our fun a game, but I was not completely successful.  I ended up also teaching my kids about relative value and maintaining cards in good condition.  I confess I made more than a few bucks off of buying and selling cards.  I've even made money selling gaming stuff, so maybe I'm a hypocrite.

I sense that a lot of collectors here have an interest in history, and owning objects such as these provide nostalgia that span time and space for them. The collector can connect through objects with the great events and people that these things represent.  These things can make its owner feel part of the grand sweep of gaming history, providing that connection with something larger than the individual who owns it.  I can't say that I am not also fascinated with D&D history, but auctions like this make me wonder about collecting superseding the game.  Our capitalistic system commercializes and monetizes almost everything.   Insanity?  That's a strong word.  Maybe something is rotten in Greyhawk?    And maybe I'm part of the problem.  :?

Deadlord wrote in New Candidate: Silliest Auction Price of the Year:The fact that it was advertised as a DM's copy (the only one he has ever seen) seems a bit shady.
It is NOT a DM's copy, it MAY have belonged to someone who DMed with it. I suspect the moniker of "DMs copy" was added in to relate it to Inverness and Tamoachan in order to rake in new collectors who wouldn't know there never were DMs copies of Fazzle. Heck, I would be surprised if a DM's copy of Invern or Tamo went for that much, in that condition.

bclarkie wrote in New Candidate: Silliest Auction Price of the Year:
You're certainly not wrong, on the other hand, in cases like this, as noted above it's beyond silly.  Reputation in no case of a fairly common item should mean a 500% increase in price, shrinkwrap or not. IMHO.

bclarkie wrote in New Candidate: Silliest Auction Price of the Year:Already know better than to engage.

Mister Yuk wrote in New Candidate: Silliest Auction Price of the Year:
Sorry you had to wait.

Mister Yuk wrote in New Candidate: Silliest Auction Price of the Year:It seems like the biggest problem you had with what I had to say is that you don't think I know how an Auction works. I didn't spell it out to you because I assumed we all knew that. Here's that Shaq story again with the part highlighted for you so that you can infer that I did know that the 2nd highest bidder does set the ending price on an Auction.

Mister Yuk wrote in New Candidate: Silliest Auction Price of the Year:You don't think that one of eBay's Highest Quality Sellers should (or do) command much higher prices than the generic eBay Sellers do. I don't know what to tell you, but examples of them are all over eBay. I assume you only collect gaming, unfortunately the better examples of them are not in that category. A few examples off the top of my head:

grapefruitmoongallery - vintage photos, reproduction art & metalware

flikmywick - Victorian Desk items, Mechanical Pencils, Fobs, etc

decolady1 - mid to lower grade Art Deco decorator items

fa - FrankArt & Quoizel items (old)

These are all Sellers on eBay that consistently command top prices in their respective categories. 2-10 times what other sellers get for the same item. They do that by consistently offering items people want and giving the appearance of being experts in their fields of selling. I'm they have hundreds of people that go straight to their Listings every time they Post. While I don't feel the need to buy from any of these Sellers, many people do. I spend my time becoming knowledgeable in the items I'm most interested in purchasing, buying from lesser sellers, and saving the difference in cost. I do reference these sellers frequently because they really do know their stuff (except decolady1, she just puts on a good show).

Mister Yuk wrote in New Candidate: Silliest Auction Price of the Year:Getting back to the question at hand, why did the shrink T1-4 sell so high? I think a good guess would be that at least TWO fairly well off Collectors that weren't comfortable in determining authentic shrink felt that Auction was there best bet to get an Authentic original Shrink T1-4. Or maybe it was just a pissing contest, who knows - this is all just speculation. For all we know, maybe both bidders never had any intention of paying and they were just farting around.

Mister Yuk wrote in New Candidate: Silliest Auction Price of the Year:As far as my little story goes, I was following a conversation in the original eBay forums around 2000-ish. The Shaq part of the story was from, I believe, Yahoo News. The original forum is long gone, as is the Auction Listing for the Video Game. If the Shaq story is still around somewhere - I have no idea where and I'm not spending any more time on this than I already have - believe or disbelieve whatever you want, really that's fine - I'm very skeptical too.