Appraisals, value, the "Market" was Re: And $500 gets you...

[Vintage Computer Festival]

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005, vrs wrote:

> I think it's like confusing Silicon Valley (or Portland, Oregon) with the
> world :-).  Maybe if I lived and worked where you do, I would see hundreds
> of different venues doing a brisk business in this stuff.  As it is, I see
> one local scrap guy (there are other local scrap guys, but they tend to
> specialize in stuff I'm not interested in).  I also see eBay, the commercial
> dealers on the Internet, and private deals with people I know from the list.
> And that's pretty much it.
>
> So, then we'd have to ask if the market in places like Silicon Valley so
> dwarfs the rest of the planet that *they* should be declared "the market".
>
> I think the term "the market" should refer to wherever the bulk of the
> available stuff trades, (provided that the venues included are actually open
> to the general public).  "Market value" should refer to something like the
> median value in the distribution of the publicly available trades.  (Though
> that is a simplification that ignores the reasons there are different venues
> with different prices in the first place.)

Hi Vince.

I think the myopia you're accusing me of having is affecting you.  When I
say The Market I mean the pool of sales that occurs on a global basis.
I'm not talking about one particular geographic region or any one spot on
the Internet.  The Market, by definition, is a conglomeration of all sales
happening at all times in all places.

I can't say that I have access to "all sales happening at all times in all
places", but I also don't just rely on one particular venue and call that
"The Market".  That's just wrong and invalid.

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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