I should’ve taken a screencap to prove it, because the price has already dropped, but the complete collection of DARK SHADOWS on Amazon was selling yesterday for a steep $10,000. I wonder if anyone was stupid enough–er, I mean a devoted enough fan–to have paid that? I hope not. I mean, yeah, DS is worth it. For us fans, it’s worth its weight in gold. (Which might just equal $10,000 in the final tally.) As of this typing, the price had come down to a still inflated $500, but I know it typically sells for about $300, so I’d advise you all to shop around. Or wait for the Amazon price to adjust itself again.
The way it was explained to me, these companies selling in bulk on sites like Amazon employ algorithms that monitor how much all the other sites are selling an item for, and will then raise their own price by one penny. What happens when nobody is keeping up with them is that a bidding war develops between the programs, with each jacking the cost of the item up in one-cent increments until a ridiculous price is achieved. Then somebody notices and they cut the price, and it starts all over again. The algorithm doesn’t realize that no sane person would–I mean to say, only the most dedicated of fans would–pay 10,000 smackers for a collection of DVDs. And they use terms like “artificial intelligence” to describe such programs. (Artificial dumbassery is more like it.)
As a final caveat emptor, I hear there is a thriving black market of DARK SHADOWS collections and many of the discs therein won’t play, so do your homework on the seller.