The Ebay curse!

Last week I thought I'd do something about the mountain of clutter that resides in my garage, something positive. I had an old Fibreglass Interstate tank in good condition that I'd taken off a low mileage bike years ago, I looked on Ebay and a well known dealer in the midlands has a load of them for sale at stupid prices so I thought if I get a third of that I'll be well happy and it would put some more cash into the funds to buy something I really need. Well my tank sold for £46.50, about a third of what i thought it was worth and about an eighth of the prices of the tanks on there at the moment, somebody got a bargain, I suppose somebody's bargain is always somebody else's loss in a way.
Now pre Ebay days I would occasionally take a stand at a local Autojumble, parts changed hands for reasonable money, nobody felt ripped off neither the vendor or the buyer and in to the bargain you could have a great day out chatting about bikes to all and sundry. Now Ebay has taken over to a large extent the old bike market, this is good probably if you have a shed full of old bikes you want to move on but in general its a curse, its put Classic bike ownership out of the reach of many people and it favours the "collectors"
Many people at the moment are buying Classic bikes as a hedge against inflation and as an investment, they buy them and park them and thats it. The result is many of these bikes will never need spare parts again, making parts for those of us who actually use them more expensive.
The Internet has brought us freedom of expression (this blog for instance) and easy communication but I think somewhere along the line we've lost the plot.
What I should have done admittedly was put a reserve on this item but at the end of the day the market decided what it was worth so thats that although I'd rather still be tripping over that tank in the garage than have forty odd quid disappear through my fingers invisibly! And anyway if I'd made a fortune I'd have nothing to moan about!