Stupid Asking Prices- Why Don't Sellers Read Audiogon The Blue Book First?

Used anything, I generally try to be around 65% of retail, then may or may not negotiate from there.

Some things are worth more to any particular buyer or seller. There are things that are of "value" that may not be obvious in the sales price, e.g., can I drive to get it, look at it, put cash in someone’s hand, leave, and know 100% that I’m happy with what I bought and it’s arriving home safe and sound? That’s worth money to some people. Others may not want to fool with packing a heavy / bulky item and dealing with shipping. Maybe they price it to attract someone to come and get it.

What something is worth is what a buyer and seller agree it’s worth. Indignantly pointing at a blue book price and telling someone what their property is worth is rude. The price is the price, make your offer... if it doesn’t work out, move along. It seems to me that those who arrogantly act like "The Price Police" and point at a "blue book price" when buying, or even unsolicited when they aren't in the market, would also be inclined to get more than what the BB says when selling their own gear.  Funny how that works... 

also important to remember that many/most here are amateur sellers...

The idea that the Audiogon Bluebook is "reliable" is hilarious

This is no different that used and new cars going for absurd prices, arbitrary and consistent price increases everywhere (supported by false "supply chain or covid related issues"), hamburgers now running $16-$19 when eating out, $10 pints of beer, and don't even get started talking about houses going 100k over asking price in bidding wars with lines of buyers ready to pay obscene amounts. As long as people line up and "happily" pay for what is nothing more than orchestrated gouging the prices will continue to be high. It's always interesting though on a case by case basis trying to GET top dollar for your own gear or car- then you get all of the "Oh that's too much, we're in a recession you know" arguments ! 

The idea that the Audiogon Bluebook is "reliable" is hilarious

any source of data needs to be understood for what it is - reliability is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak

a-gon bluebook tracks sales through the site over time... thus it is primarily a usa based data set, and it produces calculated ’averages’ over time for any given component

on most components with ample sales data, one can see a graph of prices at which they changed hands, as a function of time... so for an older, popular component (let’s say a c-j pv14 linestage) it will track from when it was pretty new, to the present, where it is now decades old - so the nominal ’average’ does not take into account the first falling, then later, stabilizing prices (a common depreciation curve) - one can also see the spread between ’mint’ units with ones in less wonderful condition, which can be useful

so like all other data sources that one can consult to inform buying or selling decisions, one simply needs to understand what the data set is, how it is gathered, how its presented ’answers’ are computed, and how one may need to ’peel the onion’ one layer or two to gain more insight

’reliable’ is as reliable as we choose to make it - like many things in life, getting good answers, making good decisions, being really informed, takes some effort and determination