You're missing my point. My point is that TV exposure made house flipping seem easy to many people and ultimately the "greater fool" premise came to pass in the housing market. The auctions being televised on TV have led to the same premise coming to pass in the collector car market. People felt that you couldn't lose money on a collector car because you could always send it to Barrett Jackson and sell it for a huge profit. What these TV shows never did was show the cars that come back through a second time with the second seller losing a vast sum of money. I recall a 1956 Dodge Custom Royal Golden Lancer D-500 model selling for $215,000 at BJ one year. The next year it was back and sold for $115,000. It is currently for sale for $159,000. What's the true market price? Three sales, one car, you tell me what the car is worth.
If the car doesn't sell at the asking price, then how can it be "worth" the asking price?
Secondly, the high housing prices and "drive by appraisals" led to HELOC's and equity withdrawals on a level NEVER seen before in recent times. Those "easy money" withdrawals led to people buying items they couldn't afford, with classic cars being one of those items. I saw this happen with vintage Gretsch guitars. Everyone wanted a 1957 Duo Jet just like George Harrison played and would pay any amount (of the bank's) money to get one. Prices rose beyond what the regular market would bear and prices are crashing now. Limited supply and "rare"? Certainly, and for a time, buyers outnumbered sellers, but no longer. If you bought a 1957 Duo Jet within the last 5 years for a significant chunk of change, chances are good you are going to lose money if you have to sell it anytime soon.
Anecdotal sales are irrelevant. Sale prices kept climbing higher after the housing market in the U.S. had started to turn. One cannot see the downhill trend until AFTER it has passed.
By your reasoning then, CSL's are currently priceless!!! After all, according to you, there are NONE for sale (which I don't believe is the case, but that's another subject for debate!), so the current market rarity demands an astronomical price because they are unobtainable, right? Present marketplace availability is irrelevant to demand. If three show up for sale tomorrow (and it always seems like when one shows up, two or three show up right after by coincidence), does that mean the market is saturated? Of course not. I have collected cars FAR rarer than CSL's, and usually one or two per year show up for sale. Current market availability doesn't dictate their market price though for one simple reason, the pool of willing buyers is very small.
You, of course, are ignoring the fact that the pool of buyers, the number that will actually come forth with actual CASH at any given moment when one comes up, could be extremely small.
Time and again, you will see people say, "I want XXX", but when "XXX" is for sale, they don't have the money, refuse to pay the asking price (for whatever reason), or just really want to kick the tires.
