[NorCam]

Yeah I totally get that some parts are not repro'd, and that others are simply rare and command top value. I do get out there myself to pound the pavement and hit Hershey and Portland swap meets as well as local scouring but they too are seeing crazy high prices. We all know how to find a lot of the parts, but half the battle now is that everyone is seeing what prices are being commanded from a lot of online sellers, and that is helping to drive this craze. What's challenging is that the price of a correctly restored car is often not realizing the price of its restoration where a lot of the correct dated parts are being bought or even restored to complete it. Maybe when more of those currently restoring number cars can come out of them relatively clean it will not look so outpaced, but right now parts are driving a guy to be upside down in ways that are incomprehensible.

I just bought another rare intake for a future project. I snagged a nice one at a price where many actually sell, but one guy lists one weeks later for a grand more because he has one and suddenly everyone has one for that new &quot;high&quot; price. That my friend I simply tag as greed, and it really does seem to be <span style="font-weight: bold">more rampant lately</span>. I have fairly deep pockets for the rare original stuff that I just need to have, but still struggle with the greed factor I am seeing lately and that's exactly my point. A big challenge are those who have the 980+ point cars who are looking to fix certain items to get that concourse tag. That in itself will always be a factor, but the guys with the multi million dollar collection will often overspend on a part just to get it or a spare and that's also contributing to the recent hikes. I have a friend who spends infinite amounts on parts and I cannot talk any sense into him because he doesn't care what it costs him, and that feeds the issue even more.

Rare stuff has always been rare stuff, and the stuff that's not repopped will always command, but I am starting to turn off when I see door switches listed for $150, a common plastic check valve for $175, and just about every item GM carried until just 5 years ago being listed as NOS survivor parts for 20x their original jobber rate from the parts counter. So why are so many high dollar cars still struggling to break the 100K mark if all these parts are so rare and valuable now? Seriously...I have a low mile 68 car that is beautiful in so many regards and has a ton of mint original NOS part put into it 20 years ago. Today that car is worth X on the market, but knowing how many mint original or NOS parts I could pull from it, I'd bet I could easily pull far more money out of it in parts than I could if I were to sell it.

That in itself is sad, but very true. It's an interesting discussion and I do appreciate hearing other views.