The steelbook game has always been about the haves and have nots.
For everyone of those ebay resellers (or members here), that have 10x copies of a certain "rare" steelbook, they might also have numerous copies of another NOT SO rare steelbook.
There are many sellers out there that have many copies of steelbooks that are still readily available from retailers - or even some cases they aren't - but no one wants to pay a premium for them.
In essence, for every "home run" that a seller might hit, they're also maybe sitting on 5x copies of Far Cry.
As seeing a certain reseller that many of us had experience with on another forum - he would buy multiples of everything. Sometimes he got lucky, with Iron Man, and other times he was selling things below his cost.
So that's the game, but as people that have already posted and pointed out very well - there are many avenues for collectors now to get a steelbook.
Yes, you are new to the game, and there are steelbooks that you probably want to have straight away.
But honestly, if you are PATIENT and you can WAIT, there will ALWAYS be another opportunity to get a steelbook.
I think people forget - these things CAN and WILL be reprinted in many capacities - so you might not get THIS one, but you can probably get the NEXT.
Seriously people - if a studio wanted to reprint one of these rare steelbooks, what's to stop them? We're going to see G2 steelbook printing capability in the US soon.
Who is to say that a studio in the US doesn't re-use the design of a rare steelbook. How about Indy 4 in the US when the other Indy's come out on blu-ray? Who knows. But it's possible.
Movie studios and distribution houses are in it for the money - we see time and time again that they RE-RELEASE a movie with more discs, special features, better transfer, whatever.
So let the ebay sellers be, part of that strategy is for you to notice the really high amount or quantity of certain steels and then go in and purchase something at a more "reasonable price".
This thread has been working well for what it is, and as DB said, let's not turn this into a place where we bash other members...
Hope my comments are not too rant-ific - and feel free to PM me if ANY of you'd like to discuss more in depth.
