Zerostat: Old is Gold?


I was recently in the market for a Zerostat gun.  I looked online and saw that they had moved their production from England to China.  Of course, without any reduction in price.  As I try to avoid Chinese manufacture as much as I can,  I thought I would buy a used one on ebay.  I bid on a few auctions but was surprised to see them selling for around $50 for one in decent (but hardly new) condition.  The new blue Zerostats from China are $80 and up. 

Are the old Zerostats in some way superior to the newer Chinese made that would justify the (IMO) relatively high prices being realized for the original guns?
128x128andysf
@bondmanp 
For $3 I will throw one in the cart of the wife's next Amazon order!

Well, I guess I will have to "bite the bullet" and pony up $40 or so for a used Zerostat gun.  Why they sell for so much use is one of those many audio mysteries I will probably never understand and just have to learn to accept.

It should be easy to determine that the things are working by taking a small piece of styrofoam and rubbing on your shirt to give it enough charge so it will stick.  If you zap it with the gun, it should drop to the floor immediately.

Lewm:  Your response came off as merely pedantic to me.  I was surprised to hear you meant it to be amusing.  In any case, audio related subjects are serious matters as they involve our sense of well being, sanity and self worth.  Blue vs Red, whether Zerostat guns or other concerns are very much are very much "trigger" issues these days and should be treated carefully so as to not provoke endless debate.

Hifiman5:  I bought a CD once.  They are a big scam.  They only have  music on one side.  I only buy LPs.  But thanks for the suggestion.
@andysf   What?  Must be some humor there but I must be too tired to appreciate it...big day entertaining relatives. 😳
Dear Andy, Thanks for the lecture on how to behave on audio websites.  I would have rather thought that it is fun to behave as if we are all friends to begin with, and we are sitting around having a discussion over a hypothetical beer.  In my experience, everything in audio is open to "endless debate", regardless of how circumspect one might or might not be in expressing one's opinion.  I hold no grudge, nor do I bear any anger, directed at anyone here.  That's a given.

One thing I do know, though, is that you'd need to perform some thoughtful testing (if you think using the word "scientific" is pedantic), in order to know whether a particular Zerostat, old or new, British or Chinese in origin, is actually working.  
My experience with the Zerostat left me with the feeling it was just a piece of crap. It never did work right. I guess it was made in the UK, as I bought it over ten years ago. I won't be wasting cash on another one, that's for sure.

Dan