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I think that the answers to these questions get fairly complicated fast. First, the Forum is a minuscule venue, as you suggested above, compared to the behemoth that is eBay. A person has to be actively searching for detailed information about phonographs, and probably a particular model that has come to their attention for whatever reason, to find this Forum in the first place. eBay, on the other hand, is known to pretty much everyone with access to the internet. Then, too, without familiarity with the seller who's offering a machine here, where there are no seller ratings, a new reader on the Forum might not feel very secure when making a purchase here. The need to join the Forum to communicate with a prospective seller, and to (usually) send a check, wait for it to clear, and arrange shipping or pick-up, is vastly more complicated than using PayPal on eBay, where the terms of shipping or pickup have also been defined in the original listing, and the buyer has the security of buyer protection, or at the very least, the ability to provide eighty characters worth of feedback on the sale.I realize the total membership including unanimous visitors of our Forum is small compared to the ebay audience but I wonder why anyone would prefer to buy from an ebay seller over buying something similar on the Forum. What is the attraction of ebay? I've recently had two Edison Home Model B machine for sale in the Trader section. They were each listed at $385. When one sold I edited my listing to say "Sold" and I also changed the price to reflect the actual final price of $350. My Homes were a much better value than the Standard featured in this thread. I also realize there are some deals on ebay such as the Forum member that bought a cylinder machine that also came with a Berliner horn. What's the ebay attraction?
In the case of an eBay sale of a machine like this particular standard, that attains a price that seems way out of line to most of us here, all of the above applies, and then some. I strongly suspect that the buyer is not a phonograph collector and has no intention of ever being one. Looking at the machine, to an untrained eye it has a clean, pristine look about it, very suitable for something that will be added to the household as a purely decorative item that can be played occasionally -- an interesting conversation piece, and probably not much more than that; an expensive toy, a nostalgic piece of decor.
The few dozen of us who post regularly on the Forum will naturally see it differently. All the things we might see as flaws in a machine like this one, as detailed in this thread, aren't likely to register as such with a buyer whose interest is casual; in fact they might be seen as assets: here's a phonograph that has been Completely Fixed Up.
We have discussions all the time here about machines that have been altered, gutted, or otherwise abused: How could they do that to such a nice machine? But most people don't see these things as collectors do: their interest is peripheral at best. I think we've probably all had moments when we've shown someone a phonographic item that, because of its rarity, unique features, or place in phonographic history, is deeply fascinating to us, but to the uninitiated is just another old phonograph, and their response is a polite show of feigned interest when what they're really thinking is "meh". These are the kind of people who think they're being creative when they decide that the best use for Grandpa's VV-XVIII, which hasn't been played in years because of a broken spring, would be as a fantastic wine bar. I honestly think this is most people; we who really care about such things are the outliers.
Those of us who are familiar with Jerry's decades-long dedication to the hobby, and willingness to go out of his way -- often literally, when it comes to helping arrange transport -- would probably much prefer to buy a machine from him than from an eBay seller. Those unfamiliar might remain unimpressed, and stick with eBay. Two different points of view, and never the twain shall meet.
Then there's the disconcerting drop in prices of all but the most coveted machines in the past several years. It seems as if this has been noticed, discussed, and puzzled over more frequently here lately. The thread on prices realized at the most recent Stanton auction goes into it some, as do other threads recently. Large phonographs, if at all common by any measure, seem to have taken the hit most badly, and this has been noted in several threads. I've currently got an L-Door listed in the Yankee Trader section at a price that seems to me (and other members who've PM'ed me about it, though not to purchase it) on the very low side of fair. It's also posted on Craigslist to no great interest but for e-mails from a handful of schnooks making ridiculously low-ball offers. I think that just a few years ago, this L-Door would have been snapped up quickly at the price. It suffers from the curse of geography, I'm sure, in that it's too big to ship and is possibly further from home than many collectors would be willing to travel, but still...I can hardly go any lower without actively losing on it.
Lastly, eBay is eBay, and sometimes a seller there just gets lucky -- it's the timing thing that someone talked about in another thread. I buy records somewhat regularly from a seller on eBay, mostly for very reasonable prices. A couple of weeks ago he listed a lot of four very average Hit-of-the-Week records, in very average condition, and the lot sold for over a hundred and fifty dollars. I sent him a message asking if there was something I was missing about those particular records that made them sell for so much, and he responded that no, he'd been just as surprised as I was. The buyer had paid promptly, and once the records were received, was completely happy with the purchase. The same seller listed a very similar lot in his next auctions, and it closed without a single bid. eBay's weird that way. Go figure.
The internet seems to disrupt a lot of previously-held assumptions, among those the relative stability of the value not only of phonographs but of other antiques as well. The economic conditions of the past several years no doubt have something -- probably a lot -- to do with it, in that they've removed non-necessities from a lot of people's wish lists, though, as with the standard that's the subject of this thread, or the records mentioned above, it's obvious that there are still some people with relatively large amounts of cash to spend without regard to actual "market values".
Strange new world, it is, and I often think it's getting stranger all the time.
