Walkman prices skyrocketed for sure

It used to be that everything old seemed to have an increasing value, even more than inflation. I noticed about 10 years ago things started to change, The Antiques Road Show TV Show is where they started showing reruns and then updated the value a few years after the show first ran. Things like pottery, old dolls and toys really nosedived but there were some nuggets. The newest generation is less interested in material items, furniture which used to be an easy hand-me-down is no longer wanted by the millennials along with automobiles and a bunch of other "stuff."

Music equipment has the bonus of being cool and being able to play music so it still has value, but look at old TV equipment which might be the closest thing to stereos, it goes for pretty much nothing unless there's some design element to it where it's aesthetically pleasing. Over here in the US, there's very few stations broadcasting a signal that this equipment can use, although there's some adapters that might make it work locally so most "vintage" TV's go to recycling.

Newfound generations are latching on to this old music technology that has a very low entry point cost. The newcomers are the guys that found something and think it's pretty cool to get $1.00 albums and $.25 tapes, or more musically orientated guys that love the old-school electronic mashed up music machines. The nice thing is there seems to be a plethora of old music still out there but the real beauty is you can still tape your music and use it on this old equipment.

High end equipment will always be valuable and now we have a global marketplace with more competition. I remember some of my first overseas orders that arrived a couple weeks later and only cost a few dollars shipping, now I buy stuff globally all the time. I didn't know half this equipment existed until the forums and the websites started popping up talking about them. I give the upward pricing another 5-15 years, by then the internal components will really start taking a beating, belts will be goo and old music cassettes and vinyl will have really been played out. Then it will settle into the high end equipment which will be more cost effective to repair and keep running. It will be like wine where guys talk about opening up a NOS vinyl and hearing what it sounds like for the first time, and then prices will be astronomical.