It's harder to see it for cels, but I also 
collect Hard rock Cafe pins - which are mass 
produced. For years now, I've seen their prices 
on Ebay plummet. When everyone is trying to get 
in on selling, even a pin limited to 1000 copies 
is easy to get - often for what it's cost would 
have been at the cafe, sometimes less. More 
common pins are lucky to sell for more than half 
or three-quarters their retail cost.

Result? People aren't listing those common pins 
anymore. The overall drop in the *number* of 
insertion fees was probably the real reason Ebay 
was needing to raise the cost of the insertion 
fee. IMHO, they're shooting themselves in the 
foot. I don't know about anyone else, but I have 
things that two years ago I would have tossed up 
on Ebay just to get rid of them. With the higher 
fees, it makes no sense for me to bother listing 
things which might not sell or wouldn't sell for 
enough to cover the fee anyway.

Making the issue cel-related: Has anyone else 
noticed the overall decline of "unknown" cels on 
Ebay? I used to hunt through the unknown cels at 
least once every couple days because that was one 
of my big chances to find things like the Miyu 
shinma, the Blue Seed aragami, minor characters 
from Eatman. . . Hardly anyone lists unknown cels 
anymore - some weeks I put in my varients on
"anime +cel +unkn*" and get no listings. One of 
the few who still does is Prop-Lady, and recently 
I nabbed from her a cel that (unknown to her) was 
one of the Miyu shinma in it's shinam form. I 
almost want to shake her hand for listing it, 
since so many sellers wouldn't even have bothered.
It's been a long time since I nailed a nice 
unknown - where I used to find an unknown I'd 
been looking for (or was interested in) at least 
once every month or two.

Being someone with no cel shops nearby and who 
can't get to cons - thus I don't get the chance 
to dig through discount or unknown cel boxes - 
this is an area of collecting that I miss. ;_;  
Likewise, being able to get some of the common 
city-specific HRC pins. (*shrug*) Ebay is a 
glorified yard-sale, and they need to wake up and 
realize they can't make it without the little 
stuff. The little stuff is already in decline. 
Keep raising listing fees and it WILL soon be
non-existant.

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac