I suppose the benefit of placing an ad on ebay for the overblown price could the beginnings of an insurance fraud scam.
then there was an ad for a pair of Aleph 2s in NYC... for like $24K.
I queried the would be seller why so high when the going price for a fully recapp'd piece down at the factory was about $4500.
His answer was that "
these are mine".... I offered him $3000 and told him to come to me if he ever came down to reality. He never did, never sold it either. I doubt the insurance company would have even paid him that either.
I've posted some of those ridiculous ads in DIYAudio. It seems the sellers have little shop set ups were they sell "collector items". They have absolutely no clue about audio and they feed off each other's posted prices. Some fools buy sometimes because those things look cool, but they have no clue how they sound. Naturally, all of those 50 year devices are always "mint" and sometimes, very seldom, they have been "upgraded" to LED lights.
My other favorite was the Superscope 7 watt unit that some "collector" shop posted at almost $400. One of them with the pink front panel lights. The guy said it was "built by Marantz".