What an item is actually worth - reality vs the reality shows

We do some auction unit buying and have a small store, so we have a pretty good feel for what items are worth, donation values, etc.  Then you have the people like Storage Wars, Auction Hunters, etc who represent junk as valuable through seeded items and pre-auction selected "experts".  Example:  Allen and Ton bought a storage unit that had a drum set with a Zylgen Cymbal.  Oh, the "its so valuable" claim.  Took it to some "experts" to sell.  They paid $1500 for the cymbal and drum set.  You could buy the same trap set for $250, including the same cymbal every day on Ebay or CraigsList.

Same with the firearms, antiques, etc.  Every value that I have taken the time to research is inflated significantly on these shows. 

We had Storage Wars Texas come through here recently.  There were some locals for color, but it was clearly set up to sell the units for far more than market to the actors/buyers, with the usual "this item is worth XXX" and "Bob" won with a profit of XXX.  Sure he did.  The only way he made that profit was "blue sky" based on the "guesstimates". 

I think there was an episode of Storage Wars that featured a Zildjian cymbal too, but it was the rare Istanbul version valued around 3K.

I always check EBAY when I see something I've never seen or sold before valued on storage auction reality shows. It's always way higher than it would sell for on EBAY.  The so called expert often says "a retail value". I think things we sell on EBAY for $100 could often have a retail value of much higher if marketed in a high end antique store. Well, I don't have a high end antique store. I'm going to sell it on EBAY for $100....or whatever. Now maybe the person I sell it to has an antique store and they ARE going to get big bucks eventually. Who knows. I notice they also say "a retail value IF you find the RIGHT buyer....." Yeah, the right buyer makes all the difference and that buyer is probably not shopping EBAY.

When I first seen this thread, I was hoping you were going to post a list of items found on tv with two colums "Fake Value" and "Real Value"

When I first seen this thread, I was hoping you were going to post a list of items found on tv with two colums "Fake Value" and "Real Value"

Feel free to start it. We have no problem with people kicking in and helping out.

You do the first ten..