Bottom line is, whether notoptube (pb*bikes) realizes it, admits it or not, his and other sellers doing the mega pricing in their auctions for the otherwise close to run of the mill stuff, drive the pricing on components up in an accelerated way when other sellers see their auctions and do the copycat thing on the prices. I understand that sellers like pb*bikes might need to do this to support their particular sales/profit structures, but then all of a sudden so many things become unaffordable for C&V bike builders/restorers/riders. Just in the last couple of years I've seen prices jump up to over double on many different components when these mega pricers suddenly popped up. Yes, the prices on the other auctions usually go down again after their items don't sell for a while, but they do not go down to what most would think they should be at or reasonable as the pricing boost affect seems to be hard to totally shake off once they first tried to sell at the super high prices. so the net affect on C&V component buyers is negative....
I just want it back to the days before wallet busting $220 Mavic NOS 851 RDs, $100 NOS TA waterbottles, $100 NOS TA and REG Cages, $250 NOS Mavic handlebars, $250 Mavic stems, $100 NOS Stronglight 107/106 chainrings, ....those little Universal brake lever adjusters (ever see he latest prices on just the small hoods for them?) ever existed at eBay..I'm sure it's even worse with Italian components these days.
Just about three/four years ago, I did not have trouble finding and buying most of these things at easily 1/3rd the price or less......now they are just mostly unaffordable....No, not rare, but just always priced way too high now....so my component stash box is slowly but surely emprtying quickly as I cannot afford to replenish what I use lately anymore.
JMOs

Chombi