The price of Mark series amps these days. thoughts?

[robvoyles]

Just wanted to get some thoughts on the prices im seeing these days on mark series amps. I'm sure most of you are seeing them too. Any thoughts on IIC+ amp's some priced over $10, 000 dollars and the coliseum's IIc+ asking $16,000 to $20,0000. Mark III's in the $3,000 range and higher. would really like to hear some thoughts on what people are asking for them.

 

[rarebitusa]

Having Mesa GAS for years does prompt me looking at the used market on an ongoing basis. It's just one players opinion here... but the actual selling prices have softened quite a bit over the last year. The asking prices do remain high and on some cases overly optimistic especially for IIIs and IVs, which are great amps BTW. Currently it's pretty much a buyers market.

 

[CoG]

the question is never the asking price, it's the selling price. Reverb's existence* has led to a selling strategy across all platforms where if the seller's livelihood is not dependent on buying and selling gear, it often makes more sense for them to post dramatically inflated prices and hope for some weirdo to make an impulse buy based on internet hype than to 'compete'. Now, this is fine, **** happens, there is no such thing as an objectively 'fair price' and I made a good chunk of money flipping gear during the pandemic so I'm not dragging it. But it creates a heavily distorted market where lack of demand at a price point does not necessarily reduce prices.

*this was an ebay thing too, but the prevalence of fraud and ripoffs in decades past means that few people are inclined to make high-dollar impulse buys on ebay compared to reverb where it can pay off to go whaling.