[vcf-midatlantic] AOL 4.0 on Ebay

[Thomas Fuchs]

Might be someone money laundering. eBay is definitely used for that sometimes. Another possibility is someone trying to artificially inflate some statistic for their listings. The Internet works (or doesn’t) in mysterious ways!

-Thomas F.

> On Jul 23, 2018, at 1:40 PM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
> 
> The AOL 4.0 CD ebay auction referenced, has a starting bid of $575, and one bidder. That bidder has ZERO rating and bidding history only 6 days old.  I smell a RAT!.
> 
> An ebay search for AOL CD's sold recently (months) shows most selling for several dollars to under $20, or in sets at those prices. There's stories years old on the Web, about this or that AOL CD or floppy selling for thousands; but not much since 2015.
> 
> Now, that's just a modest and incomplete survey, looks over about an hour of time. But I'm not seeing any comprehensive collector's discussions and marketplaces. For items worth thousands, I'd expect to see more. In any event, there's no clear and obvious venue to determine likely value. That makes it hard to sustain interest in high prices, when you can't validate what you have (or are about to) spend.
> 
> I imagine someone might tell me "blah blah blah, put it on eBay and take what you can get, what someone pays is what it's worth". I don't find that a satisfactory explanation, that's called "the greater fool". If there's any persistant value to AOL disks or CD's, I'd expect to find something - or have someone tell me "go *here* and see for your self".
> 
> Herb Johnson
> lesser fool
> 
> 
> -- 
> Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA
> http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net