High price of inkjet printers? Epson 880

[mithrandir2001]

I'm looking for an Epson 880 inkjet because my parents need a printer and since I have this particular model myself, I already have 5 sets of color/black carts.

So I shuffle off to eBay and I see that people are paying, in some cases, over $200 for this printer??? I think I paid $63.20 during one of Dell's promotions last June. What's going on? I thought I should be able to get this printer for about $50 by now.

Example auction

 

[Lvis]

How'd they get that much???? dang, I'm tempted to sell mine... only paid like thirty-five bucks for it. Great printer, though. Couldn't give it up.


Edit: It may be because of cheap carts being available for it? I understand with newer models generic ink isn't available?

 

[RossMAN]

What are the major differences between the Epson 820 and 880?

 

[mithrandir2001]

Yea, I've heard something about Epson's new inks that's different. If you can't get generics anymore then I can see why the older models would have pent-up demand (but THAT much?). I'll never buy anything but genuine carts and I bought 5 sets (10 carts) of Epson ink for about $50 on eBay...so this printer of mine is VERY cheap to own.

 

[mithrandir2001]

The 820 is a photo printer with 6 inks. It's more geared for photography (duh) whereas the 880 is a 4 ink printer that has a high-speed transport. It's rated at like 17ppm. If you print standard ASCII text (out of Notepad or something), it does literally spit out paper like no tomorrow. But who prints plain text?