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I have seen this a lot at antique malls and shops, exorbitant prices on large old pieces of electronic equipment. I think there are several different factors at play here.
At the malls, where individual dealers rent a booth, some of these people are just doing this as a extra source of income and are likely not very experienced and judicious on pricing, and either naively think that the item is worth a lot of money or they KNOW it isn't worth a lot and think a "sucker" will buy it. These malls are a lot harder to "dicker" with as the store keeper doesn't have any investment in the merchandise; they are not losing money if they can't sell it, so they have no real motivation to lower the price, and most times are not allowed to with out calling the owner of the booth, etc.
Another thing I have read is that most of the antique trade is to other dealers who take it and re-sell it at other antique malls or shops. Something like 75% or all antique sales are for resale if I remember correctly. The shops don't want to give a "low" price to someone who might re-sell the item.
The better places to find fair prices on TV's, console radios and such is an antique shop where the owner has actually purchased the inventory. After it sits around for a while and does not sell the shop will usually give you a deal on it. I have got some things free or at reasonable prices that had been in antique shops for YEARS at high prices, more than 3 years in some cases. I got a non-working GE console stereo priced at $395 that sat around an antique shop for years for free! They gave it to me! Obviously they were trying to sucker someone into buying it and after they found no suckers they gave it to me.
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