Buying used vs. New

I have a mix of used and new in my system, which is the first audiophile quality one I have put together. I have had good luck so far buying used equipment. I would say, however, that one should never pay more than half of the original retail price for a used item, the only exception to this would be if it basically hadn't actually been used. That is pretty much the rule of thumb for any type of high-end goods. And of course, you have to do your research and make sure that you know what you are getting.

Yes, of course, there are certain items, particularly vintage ones like the Garrard and Thorens mentioned, where you will have to pay more, and it would be worth it to do so. And there are other exceptions that don't have anything to do with the actual value of the item, as someone mentioned. However, the 50% rule I stated does hold true for the vast majority of products out there in any high end industry, whether it is audio, jewelry, cars, what have you, and many people in all of those industries will agree with that. Yes, you will see people here on audiogon paying more, but they certainly don't have to, and in the vast majority of cases shouldn't be. You also see many items not selling either here or on ebay because they are priced above this mark. Very often, the seller has to come down to near that 50% before anyone even bids. Is this a hard and fast number? No. Is it a good general rule of thumb? Yes.

Actually Viridian, I would say that Tvad hits my point exactly when he says no buyer or seller can dictate price, "unless they are educated in the current market for their goods." I would actually go farther and say current, past, and expected future market (witness the sudden jump in price quite recently of used Thorens 124's). However, I disagree strongly with the statement that only the market sets the price, particularly in the used market, in which prices vary much more greatly than the new market. Macrojack is correct, I feel, in speaking of willing buyers and willing sellers converging. That's a very good way to put it. There are many people out there who won't buy anything above a certain price point because they are too cheap, and there are also many out there who insist on paying far more than something is worse because they can't believe that something is worth buying unless it is expensive, and many, many levels in between, combined with many levels of knowledge of what they are buying.

The comment that I don't have the breadth of experience or knowledge of the market just because I only have three transactions on this site is illogical on the face of it, and frankly is insulting. It certainly says much more about you and your assumptions than it does about me. I thought that sort of personal attack was not allowed on this site - it certainly doesn't reflect well on audiogon. I never said I was the "arbiter of appropriate pricing." I was merely pointing out a very general rule of thumb that is widely accepted in high end industries of all types. There are of course always exceptions, especially to such a general rule as that.

Tvad, I admit I am confused after reading your post. You say I need more education in what constitutes a market, and then the entire rest of your post agrees with what I have said in mine, just with different wording. You and I are saying the exact same thing really, I think. The confusion lies in how the term market is being used. Let me give a couple of examples. Say you have a rabid collector of something, it doesn't matter what, who is missing only one item from a complete set. This person will almost certainly be willing to pay a price far higher than most buyers for that missing item. Does this drive up what people call the market price for that item in general? No. To use a more specific audio example, say you have a very rich person who likes to buy the latest and greatest new product. He pays full price for each new item he buys, but turns around and almost immediately sells it for far less than he paid for it, perhaps as little as a tenth of what he originally paid, because something newer and supposedly better just came out. Does the way this person operates set a standard for the rest of the market prices? Again, no. These kinds of people are not doing their buying and selling based on the market price, and could care less about the market price, and these are extreme examples of what I mean when I say the market does not determine every price. Every buyer and every seller are different, which we certainly agree on, and on the internet you get all kinds of buyers and sellers in the same marketplace. What you are calling the market price changes on almost a daily basis for many items, and different markets have different prices. Prices on audiogon can be very different from those on ebay, for very different reasons. Every user of these sites has seen incredible prices, both good and bad, on both. In this constantly changing world of prices, which I have observed in the audio world very closely for a while now, I have found that very general 50% mark to hold up over the long term. Even here on audiogon, where buyers are normally willing to pay a little more because they know they are buying from reputable sellers, this is still very often the case. I have seen a great many used items listed on this site much higher than that, and almost all of those prices eventually come down, and many of those that don't never do get sold. On ebay, this would be even more true. Many buy it now prices are so high that they don't even get sold, unless to a buyer truly desperate for that item, and us audiophiles have probably all been that buyer at some point. I know I have, for a certain recording I couldn't find in a store for over 20 years and then it suddenly popped up on ebay. But normally, unless the item is very collectible, or a hard to find vintage item, or the seller has a reserve that is set too high, most often auctions for a used item don't go much above 50% of the original retail price on ebay. There are of course very frequent exceptions - I am talking about long term trends. In this sense, the market does set a price range - but it does not set ALL prices, and the prices it sets one week can be completely different the next, as any regular visitor to ebay knows. There are always exceptions to every rule. I may not define a market and how it operates the same way you or do, and almost certainly not as an economist would, but that is just semantics. I have watched the used high end audio market for a long time now, and I stand by what I have said about it. For most items (not all), a great many people don't usually pay more than half the original retail. You just don't have to if you do your homework and have enough knowledge about the particular item you want to buy (as I think you said yourself in one of your earlier posts), and this is true over the long term regardless of the average price range the market is setting at any given time, or of how it may temporarily fluctuate. So that is why I still advise the original poster that he doesn't have to pay above that mark for most used items if he doesn't want to, and I know many audiophiles and collectors of all sorts would agree.

Guys, the most bewildering thing to me is that you both keep asserting that I am making a blanket statement. Rereading my last post alone, I count at least four times where I said that there are many exceptions to what is a very general rule. I am truly sorry that you both apparently failed to see this. Which makes the straw man/ad hominem comment in particular especially amusing. Wow. All I can do now is laugh it off and move on, adding only that I sure am glad I decided to become a professional musician instead of a writer. No hard feelings here, I assure you, even for your misquotation. :)