A Kirby C goes for a poultry sum...Oh, Nooooo!!!

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cb123

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Just kidding, and it's really a Kirby 1-C with a early C belt cap. It looks like they traded-up with a rarer cap, not bad, not bad at all.

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vac for poultry or pigs or parakeets--

If you talk with many DTD salesmen you will hear stories of taking anything of value for a down payment.One Elux saleman in this region took a pig,in his new Lincoln,after making the sale on a farm.Another took a parakeet.I had an older Filter Queen brought in with minor problems.Turns out the customer traded a horse for it years before and later learned the horse died 2 weeks later.
 
Sometimes I believe people put vintage, restored vacuums on eBay with outrageous prices, not because they actually expect to sell them, but because they want to 'show off' what they have. However, at least from my aspect, I look at those auctions and think the seller must be nuts and should be beaten with the damn thing. So the 'showing off' can backfire.
 
Another great value, so it seems

Or do our olfactory senses another Showoff - that green eyed monster, or is it just another lover of money, or, maybe, he just needs another can of spam. Who knows, only time will tell.

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'A poultry sum'

... Presumably, that would be 'chicken feed' ;-)

I never cease to be amazed at some of the outlandish prices people manage to get on Ebay... Proof that 'auction fever' is alive and well. Why does nothing I list on Ebay fetch that sort of money??? :'(

All best

Dave T
 
Does the Kirby C come with its attachments,boxes,and orig paperwork-if not then worth not much of anything.At least the D80 comes with box and attachments,and its manual.But still too much.Got one from a trade in pile for----FREE!Still works!The boxes did suffer flood damage-the machine and tool,hose OK.
 
Sadly eBay vacs are fetching vast sums of money...

And I hate it! While the price is far from paltry these people must have paltry minds to bring such high values into this hobby/obsession (I know for myself and many friends it's far more of and obsession than a hobby!) and I feel it distorts what many of us 'true' collectors try to do. I know I'm not alone in feeling a bit sore about how the prices on vacuums are going up and up, I guess to me it's so far from being about the money, it's just about the pure love for and enjoyment of vacuum cleaners. I view them as beautiful yet utilitarian tools, they aren't just to look at. For me they are also to be used. To fully enjoy a vacuum I must also use it and experience it's sounds and function. I see some people that clean them up and put them on display as if they're just to be eye candy and to me that's no fun. I also think that when the prices get so out of line it ruins the hobby for all but the wealthiest collectors, putting the neat old and uncommon machines that at one time you only had to be in the right place and time to find now are on eBay with painfully ridiculous price tags. To me and the friends I have in the vacuum world it's all about finding, restoring, and enjoying the machines as well as helping each other out with machines and parts. I think the idea of these old vacuums being sold as priceless antiques ruins the whole feel of what it's all about.

Anyway, that's my rant.
 
I'll add, I don't have an issue with collectors selling machines to each other. I've bought many things from collectors for reasonable prices. What bothers me are these machines like this one. Or the red Hoover that went for $600 or something like that. It's just too high. I'm guilty myself of overpaying once in a while. I remember back when I was just luring on the site a few years back I saw on here a thread about a beautiful Electrolux CB on eBay for some high price. I used the or best offer feature and offered $300 more as a jab than a real offer since that was less than half of what he wanted. He accepted and I was stuck paying more than I ever dared to imagine paying. But all ended well and the expensive as all get out shipping was justified by the excellent packing and large box. And the machine did come in excellent and clean condition, and I learned it is the very first version of the CB that replaced the CA. So it ended well, but still I don't like inflated prices.
 
I feel the very same way. They're not only ergo vacuum eye candy - not just sweets for our eats, but they clean under our feets. I think the prevailing theory, which isn't too bad, is the more people you have collecting the same "whatever" will inevitable drive the price upward. Which is pretty much a free market principle. The fewer dollars you have in circulation the more valuable they become, or if you want to use art as an example, or just about anything else people obsess over would be a fair analogy. These old vacuum cleaners are in no ways akin to gold, for they're still clawing that out of the earth to this very day, but these old vacuums, when they're gone...their gone, and they will stay gone - not one more will ever be made again, and we'll all be the poorer for it. We must remember, the more you have people looking upon these old machines as a paragon of excellence, in form and functionality, the more desirable, the more valuable they will become. I would guess there's some collectors out there, if giving an option between a bar of gold and that dream machine they've been praying for, for the past twenty-five years, it would be a fair chance they would pick the stick over the brick. Who are we to judge peoples dreams coming true, true for a price. I guess if you pay a lot for something, that must mean you love it a lot, at the very lest you'll make sure you'll take better care of it - I hope!
 
I notice that the foolish, optimistic sellers of $1000 Kirby vacuums, while never actually selling them, always seem to taunt us. When the listing time has expired, they relist it for $50 less. Still way more than it's ever worth. And they tend to do it time and again. Instead of taking pictures of vacuums that will never sell at the listed price (which the seller never intended to sell anyway), they should be out from in front of the computer, trying to get a life (and a date).
 
Actually ...

… what *I* think is "showing off" is bragging about how you procured a rare vacuum for "nothing".

Much as we wish we did, some of us simply do not have the time or the flexibility to devote to the "hunt" that some of you apparently do.

Nor do we have the space or resources (or frankly even the raw talent) to properly restore a vacuum and resurrect it to its former glory.

But by God, we work our asses off at professions that pay well, which gives us OUR edge in the marketplace.

Someone above mentioned a $600 Hoover as being an outrageous price. Why is that so outrageous? When it was brand new, a 1968 Hoover Convertible was MORE than $600, adjusted for inflation. So it's simply held onto its value. I see nothing outrageous about that. Just because YOU cannot afford $600 to buy it doesn't make the price "outrageous".

Do you feel the same way about classic cars? Perhaps I should be bent out of shape over the fact that a 1961 Jaguar is selling for $1 million. OUTRAGEOUS! It should be just *given* to me because I love it, right? Or those vintage Rolex watches in the display cases at Bergdorf-Goodman. $28,000 for a 49-year-old watch! OUTRAGEOUS! How patently unfair that people with more money than me can have that watch and that Jaguar! After all, whoever buys them will not appreciate them as much as *I* would!

I see these criticisms all the time both here and on the automatic washer forum. Someone has the nerve to list a vintage appliance for a sum of money and they get flamed for it. What's it to you? The worst that could happen for that seller is that nobody bites. Or could it be that you're bent out of shape because someone WILL buy it for an amount you yourself cannot afford?

Everything is "worth" what someone is willing to pay for it, whether it's an old Hoover, an old car, or a deserted piece of real estate. That's how the world works. And unfortunately, there will always be someone with deeper pockets chasing after something you want. That is also how the world works.

OK, end of MY rant.
 
Supply and demand

Well 'Ranted', NYCWriter..... Whilst I am surprised and amazed by some of the prices things fetch, I have the serenity to accept that it's just market forces at work... As you say, there are plenty of 'deeper pockets' out there.....

I still can't help wishing that someone would want something of mine that much... ;-)

All best

Dave T
 
Well said! But I do think at times some are forced to sell possessions they would much rather keep, rather than sell. Often is employed the tactic called the "Big Stall" - Ole Reliable. For sometimes their "dates" are prone to riding'em like dogs in order to divest them of all their unnecessary, worldly accoutrements. In order to prevent this most atrocious act, they outflank their "dates" by just simply pretending the attempt of actually selling it for an absorbent price - all the while hoping it won't sell, of course. I believe the motives of most are not as vacuous as they may seem, but are, indeed, multifaceted, which helps form the layers of crap people have to put up with.
 

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