Collins 75S-3c for $1,200

[Ed Tanton]

Well now Bob... that's the proverbial Horse of a Different Color! I must
confess to having used the same kind of generalization about my "stuff"...
sort of paralleling the anti-McDonalds ad from somebody else's chicken,
referring to "parts is parts" by referring to my basement as "Stuff is
stuff".  But, mostly, there's "stuff" and then there's "STUFF".  In the
nature of things, I've always thought of Collins as "STUFF"... you know,
like there's regular junk, and then there's good junk.

I don't know if all this to-do about prices and value matters much, but I
believe that, as a general rule, prices over the long haul, trend upwards on
everything. Stuff's (there's THAT word again) prices tend to rise and fall
based mostly on an item's its popularity vs its scarcity. In the case,
specifically of boat anchors, that is heavily influenced by a couple of
additional factors: popularity is often determined by urban legends (e.g.
the SX-88 as an outstanding example; and the phrase: "the Gold Dust Twins"
for another); also, scarcity can REALLY get rolling between ordinary
attrition due to the occasional large/noisy/messy component failure-which,
when caused by, or combined with a healthy dose of ignorance or stupidity,
reduces the number of units existing by 1-and export... a term often
vilefied in most corners since things rarely cross the ocean in but one
direction.

Right now, if this were Wall St., we would probably have to say the market
is undergoing a "slight adjustment"... the translation of which is: the
tighter money in Asia is probably going to see fewer units shipping in that
direction. Mind you, I have mixed emotions about all of this. It is very
easy to argue against a thing, when, in truth, there isn't much you can do
about it, and you don't have any suggestions of what to do-even if you
could. I personally prefer the common "let the market find it's own level."
I was actually pleasantly surprised to see the quickness that the 75S-3(c)
responded to the decreased pressure from overseas buyers. OK... it was
mostly a sort of academic "isn't that interesting" pleasure-but it is nice
to see some of the basic economic theory I was so sure (when I was taking it
so many years ago) was pure BS-or just an observation of cause and effect...
but this 75S-3(c) thing all by itself illustrates some pretty fundamental
economic concepts of demand vs scarcity and their effects on price.

I think the truth is: you are also correct about lightening up. The bottom
line with boat anchors is that if you are happy with what you got, for what
you paid, you win. And by the way, it seems to me that the often used phrase
about "He who dies with the most toys wins" ignores an important point: when
you're dead, you don't CARE if you had the most toys when you went, 'cause
you couldn't take 'em with you. Odds are you don't actually CARE about
anything-except maybe they way the guy at those Pearly Gates keeps nodding
his head, as he looks at your entries, continually muttering "Uh oh!" So, we
had better be having a good time now, with all this junk er stuff er
whatever-you all know what I mean.


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