The whole point of the thread is moot anyway since most of those "minimum asking price" listings get pulled before the end of the ebay auction and sell for hundreds (if not more) of dollars well below the original asking price.
As a result no one besides the seller and buyer has any real idea of what the end result and true market value of what a machine is worth.
A high public asking price with a make an offer option and the actual end result private selling price on any individual machine are nearly always poles apart.
The problem is in many cases, this can lead to people to erroneously believe that their stock Godzilla is worth $4000 when a similar machine is listed publicly and gets pulled early - completely ignoring the fact that it then gets relisted a few weeks later for a lower price and still no bids. 
At least with a 99 cent start auction that actually goes the duration we can get an accurate guage as to values rather than these false assumptions as to sale price and ultimately market value. Most 99 cent auctions get a majority of activity in the first 1-24 hours and last 2 minutes. It takes a bit of nerve but it works out nearly all of the time. I have listed this way in the past for used machines which I have imported and couldn't be bothered starting a shop out/resto on and within the first 24 hours of listing it has already reached my minumum sell price combined with the surety that most of the additional bidding activity will occur in the last 2 minutes.
Good on you Retropin for the info and accurate data surrounding the sale price of your machine. A lesser individual might be tempted to make a series of ass umptions about your sale in order to reinforce their point. 
Spot on and thanks for more real world personal experiences. These are invaluable, unlike heresay.
Thanks pinnies4me. Those "my best mate" third party anecdotes do have a degree of entertainment value and are good for a chuckle, but like any repetitious comedic routine that you have heard countless times before over the years, do tend to get stale and predictable.
That was definately a perfect example of stale and predictable. Hopefully the last for some time to come.
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