This goes both ways, for VHS tapes. Any collectible, really.
Example: I have a rare movie release. It was only available to the rental market, in select European countries, in 1986. About 25 years ago, late 90s, I got a copy, at least $100 at that time. I've converted it multiple times (DVD, lossless, H.264 deinterlaced), but it had some tape-based boogers that could not restore out perfectly. This tape was the reason I bought my first PAL VCR. About 5 years ago, late 2010s, another copy appeared, for $20. The person did not know what he/she had, located in one of those European countries, and all movies were the same price, from what appeared to be a video store inventory being liquidated. It had other issues, but all my boogers were fixed, two copies made perfect digital version. Time to sell the tapes! So I put both up for current fair market price. I'd get people contacting me, stating it was only $20 on eBay because some random "eBay archive" sites showed the old price from many years ago, and I need to lower my price. Ridiculous. For $20, they'll stay mine.
(The video is available on Youtube now, but it's a really old conversion, from a pre-Youtube era, heavily compressed unwatchable garbage. The rare movie is actually a remix [sort of] of footage from other movies, and some have attempted reconstructions, but it's just not the same, still missing footage, alterations. The recon job also has many video flaws that make it a blurry mess.)
This happens all the time in the collectible action figure market. Prices gets absurd in both directions, and somebody always complains. If you think politics are toxic cesspools online, join a Marvel Legends or Star Wars vintage figures group on Facebook.
This "circlejerk" of mispricing is also what made eBay suck for video gear. Many years ago, I could acquire a semi-decent VCR that needed work, for $225 or so. Junk cost less. Put in parts (junk deck = donor), labor, time, sell it for at least $500. The MSRP was about $500, and my reconditioning put it back to like-new shape. But then it turned to a point where people now think damaged non-functional irreparable VCRs are worth $250 minimum, and barely passable quality decks (functional, but with motor issues, gear issues, oxide shed inside, etc) are at least double or triple that. How can prices of quality decks ever get below $1k again? Because that's what I'm having to now charge. And the work is getting tougher, making deck refurbs less fun, and a time-suck.
It used to be a case of VCR users selling their decks. Now it's just recyclers (resellers) flipping crap. It gets listed and re-listed. Sometimes you'll see flipper buyers buying and flipping unseen, especially beware of the Houston VCR scammer.
As per recent threads, TBC-1000 sellers have knowingly been selling "for parts or repair" units, trying to pass the buck on their own bad buys.
See
https://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/new...buy-parts.html
As much as I warn others, they just can't help themselves. "Gee George, I can save lots of money!" ... and then they find out they lost lots of money instead. Maybe I should sell magic beans instead of refurb'd video gear?
To clarify, eBay is not my preferred source of gear, but even off-eBay is affected by the on-eBay pricing (not even sold, but "for sale" that never sells). That makes negotiations tougher, because they think their turd is a brick of gold. I really hate it when I have to deal with liquidator 3rd parties, middleman for a "telephone game", and they never know anything about the items (and probably couldn't even a set a VCR clock).
In the past 2 years, I've had more deals fall apart than in all prior years. It's just not feasible what they wanted. At least once, the person came back some months later, hoping I was still interested in buying, after failing to find anybody for his absurd pricing. However, he had sold a few pieces, and somehow thought I'd still be interested at the same pricing. Uh, no. I passed, still too costly for the now-picked-over lot.
The situations that really piss me off is when we negotiate fairly ... THEN the person looks at eBay, and comes back with an insane counter AFTER we agreed on a price. I've actually blocked more than one person for this, they can no longer email or PM me, and one was banned from here for doing it to another member.
