The Corroseum forum (new design under construction)

For the first time since I registered on ebay (in 2008), my watch list is completely empty. For me, there's been a somewhat steady decline in the number of interesting items (vinyl only) offered during the last year or so. And no, it's not because I own more stuff now, my want list is bigger than ever. Many sellers who used to offer good quality metal on vinyl have either stopped completely, or are much less regular with their listings. And not many (if any) new sellers have popped up.

Have you been experiencing the same lately? Are records drying up?

I somewhat experienced the same with my watch list, it's not empty but the number of items decreases more and more. To my belief this has less to do with records dying out, it's rather my frustration about price trends on almost any item. Even if I see something of interst it's like "Fuck it, this will go for thrice the price it used to go a few years ago. I'll ignore that one!". Another reason I can imagine is that interest in records has reached a peak comparing to the offers. But this will change in some years, I'm convinced of that. Everything in life behaves wavelike, so it's with the interest and offers regarding records. Now I can expatiate that with claiming "One who has only downloaded music 3 years ago found out that credibility can even today still be bought with money in terms of records. etc". Maybe this trend will shift to e.g. owning many tattoos or so in a few years, who knows.

I've noticed eBay is more about new releases and digital reissues (or boots). Prices are up and peoples wallets are empty on older releases. Been buy a lot myself but just on private boards. Bagged a few killer Banzai releases and some cool King Diamond stuff recently on a guitar forum of all places

I have noticed the same, although I cannot be the most competent person to tell it as I am more of a watcher than an actual bidder when it comes to really expensive records.
But, maybe it`s because sellers now try to avoid eBay and switch to, say, discogs? I am only guessing...