I was so shocked at the out of line pricing at an estate sale by my house the other day I had to whine about it here. So... as I'm driving home I see an Estate Sale sign by my house. I follow the signs and go. I walked in the door and saw what company was running it, and it's the ones who ALWAYS price tv's way too high. Walk in to check it out, and my first clue that it was gonna be bad is when I see a 13" Magnavox with missing remote for $60.00. Then I go in another room and see an early 80's Sylvania 13". Now this set was only $15.00 and I thought "hummm, maybe it won't be so bad" Now here's what made me freak. I go in the living room and they have a 25" Proscan, and they had it priced at $400.00!!! What the hell?? $400.00 for a 10 year old 25" set??? Do these people NOT check what the current prices for a NEW set are?? I shouldn't be shocked... these are the same people that had a $27" Zenith marked at $650.00..... As for that Proscan, ya I know they were pricey new but wasn't that brand just a marketing ploy to appeal to an elite crowd? Proscan was still a Thomson product......

The Value Village near me regularly prices NON-WORKING 20" sets at at least 39$. That REALLY PMO. Not because I want a broken set...but every time I drag the thing over to the outlet thinking...oh for that price it MUST work....plug it in...and get nothing. No response. Nadda.

Can't be bothered with broken TV's. Especially for nearly 40$. Free - 5$ maybe.

As a teenager I don't remember seeing so much broken stuff at the thrift stores. Oh - and it seems anything remotely good is missing knobs. These days it seems all people donate is broken stuff. Even asked the guy at one last week.."don't people donate working things anymore". He said, "not likely".

Just thought I'd add to your rant.

Dr. Dan just picked up a MINT CONDITION '65 Magnavox roundie color set with remote for $30 at an estate sale in northern Los Angeles this morning... And the grandsons of the estate even carried it out and loaded it in his van since they were so happy to see it gone :tongue:

Why don't I EVER see these estate sales??? All I ever see is what Jstout66 found: Overpriced worthless 80s & 90s sets. And the typical garage sale in Los Angeles is a bunch of K-mart pressboard furniture and used underwear.

Charles

I drove all over the LA area going to garage and estate sales yesterday, it looks like I missed the best one. I still got some good stuff though: an old TV repairman's carrying case, GE, full of tubes, many new in the box, 30$, a working Akai 8-track recorder, excellent condition 5$, 5 blank Beta tapes 1.50$ each, a Sanyo Beta VCR, top loader, working, 2$.

With this sale vendor do the prices stay high (and the items unsold) on the last day of the sale? If so that is not good or there is something shady going on.

well Chad... my cousin went to the sale today and she said the house was packed. This company usually does 4 day sales (Saturday thru Monday) I should check it out tomorrow. I assume today was 1/2 off $50.00 or under. They did have a nice Magnavox Astro Sonic stereo marked at $47.50. But usually most items are priced Sky High (especially tv's and appliances)

Consoles seem to be the most yo-yo like priced items around. I watched one Magnavox Astrosonic sit for nearly a month at 100 dollars. Being solid state it was pretty much useless to me, but I watched it for the fun of it. Then a beautiful smaller Magnavox tubed console was going for 15 bucks at another thrift across town. Passed on that one for lack of space. Estate sales are so hit or miss around here. My wife and daughter love them because they can usually pick up nice costume jewelry for a song.

Estate sales and thrift stores often have what I call "random pricing." :)
I used to have really poor luck with estate sales where I lived several years ago; anything technology-related that fell in the kinda-old-but-not-collectible category like a typical 70's TV or radio was usually way overpriced. So, I tended to avoid estate/tag sales. [Estate *auctions* were generally better, because the price was dictated by actual demand, so if you were the only person actually interested in a given item, you'd likely get it for a song.]

However, where I currently live, the local estate/tag sale companies seem to generally have more realistic pricing. What's kinda funny is that one of these companies also has an antique store in town which is a rather spendy place specializing in 50's/60's pop-culture and such. They do tend to have pretty good quality items in the store, but at a price. Prices in the store start at "high" and go straight up from there. So you might guess that their estate sales are overpriced. As it turns out, that's not true at all-- the pricing at the sales they run is usually quite reasonable..!

As for wildly overpriced modern TVs and the like at estate sales like the ones jstout66 keeps encountering, I'm surprised that it would continue for so long-- I would think that a problem like that would be self-correcting. After all, the estate/tag sale company doesn't make a commision on the item if nobody buys it. It's in their own best interests to price things so that somebody will be likely to buy the item (while still trying to maximize the price it fetches). If these people run estate sales week in and week out, they should know by now that the likelihood that someone will actually pay $400 for a 1990's-era 25" color TV (even if it's a high-end model from that era) is basically nil. Same for a $60 13" modern color portable with no remote.

As for wildly overpriced modern TVs and the like at estate sales like the ones jstout66 keeps encountering, I'm surprised that it would continue for so long--

Either people are buying them, or there must be some reason that they don't want the TVs to sell.