chasm

Ebay

We all have our materialistic fixations and obsessions. Our fetishes and affinities that exist in the gray area between healthy, acceptable desires and OCD-driven impulsiveness. Rest assured that whatever your personal degree of obsession, Ebay will more than likely sate your hunger.

I've casually used Ebay for years but over the last two days, I've spent quite a bit of time on it and I'm still astounded by what you can find. Some queries were for guilty pleasures, some were for things I kidded myself into thinking that I "needed" while others were out of pure curiousity. Many returned hundreds of results while very few searches were fruitless. NEVER before has the old adage "it's only worth what someone is willing to pay" been more clearly exemplified for the world to see.

Do you know the going price of original die-cast Voltron collectibles? What about an original He-Man figure WITH his trusty Battle Cat in full armor?? A sizable lot of Spawn comic books from the early 90's??? A working, woodgrain, Atari 2600 with four single-button controllers????

Maybe they're worth more than you think or maybe they're worth less than you think. Maybe you don't think. Regardless, the market forces at work on Ebay are not too dissimilar from those found on Wall Street. Trading is trading. Money is money.

While the onus for visiting Ebay was to search for one or two items, my focus was quickly derailed and I searched for items ad infinitum. It wasn't long until I forgot what had brought me to Ebay's great auctions halls in the first place. Tangentially related at best, my queries took me to a far away land where my realistic, material needs were irrelevant and my academic curiousity was king. It was fascinating to see what items were quick movers and what items sat stagnantly for days without one bid. Economic visions of supply and demand curves became interspersed with marketing theories and even voter fatigue from an old AP Government course in high school. It was a great reminder that I did, in fact, learn something about the world in the last ten years or so and I got to see what it's gonna cost me to buy back all my childhood memories to boot!

Posted by languorous at May 16, 2004 03:15 PM