Well stated, Phantom!
The dreaded cost of doing business. Merchant fee? You mean a shop has to, in addition to other things, pay a power bill along with banking fees, business licenses, etc?!?? First time I saw the bank bill when I was working for my buddy floored me. Which is why I use cash almost everywhere. Especially to businesses I like.
I remember when you couldn't find "import" lugers or Mausers because there weren't any. All bringbacks. Then the GOPA-1986 changed all that. Pretty much every military rifle used since the Spanish-American War became available....at a price. Bira guns out of Nepal. Or Mountain pack howitzers from the same region. Snider rifles. Lugers. P-38's. Mausers of every description. Any European/Com bloc out there, SKS's. Things people hadn't seen in decades. All for cheap. I remember buying 98k Mausers by the case at just about 50 bucks each. SKS rifles I think my best price in the crate was 69 each. Could be wrong. Lugers with grips, no mags, not matching, 200 bucks. Or, no grips no mags, 169. Sold every one. Only thing sold hotter than the Lugers was the P-38's. Even the post-war al-U-minium frames, LOL. Had me a Grey ghost for a hot minute, because the dealer who had it didn't know. Wanted 125 IIRC which I paid without protest. LOL. Of course that went off to fund others so the cycle could continue.
I remember when a S&W model 10 was a 100 dollar gun. First 1911 I bought, WWII surplus was 175 bucks. Used Colt 1911's were 400 bucks. Ish. Bought a S&W 629 when they first came out, paid the egregious price of 369. The other day, looked at a 629 Mountain gun, 5" used but not clapped out by any means. Probably go for 900. Pretty much any "vintage" S&W revolver goes for what most of us call stupid money. But that's what they go for. Priced a new one lately? Taken a hard look at what passes for "quality" coming out of some of the manufacturers? They use "efficient" manufacturing to keep costs down. I just took in a Winchester Model 50. Semi-auto, recoil, delayed blowback with a floating chamber made somewhere about 1950-something. Built of blued steel and GORGEOUS American Walnut. Like a bank vault. Yeah. Got to shoot that. Keepin' it too.
Unless you live under a rock, we all know why prices are what they are. Not just guns. Houses, food, everdang thing. Shootin' irons ain't no different but auction sites just make it worse because people can't just say enough. the bug git'em and that 400 dollar gun's now six. Then eight. Enough of that affects the whole market. Yes you can game the system. I encourage you to do so, actually. Otherwise you'll never get lucky, LOL.