A car or motorcycle would be on the high end, as would the 55 inch big screen i’m watching as I write this. A toaster would probably be on the low end. (who’s won a freakin’ toaster?)

I feel 67-75% should be the consistent value we put on non-cash prizes.

Ian, you’re welcome for atleast one of those tv’s.

But yeah, Carey, the argument isn’t really going much anywhere. Anonymous seems to be responding to things we aren’t even saying. I believe our point is just that non-cash items have value, even less permanent or tangible things like vacations (because if you accept that prize, you are essentially deciding that is something you would have wanted to spend your money on anyway).

But to respond anyway to the last thing anonymous said, sure most everyone would rather have cash money. And granted assigning a value to non-cash prizes isn’t as exact as cash or the commodities you mentioned like pork bellies and oil. But that certainly doesn’t mean the value should be zero! Everything finds a market in today’s ebaying world. . .EVERYTHING. It is just a matter of if the person’s time is worth more or less than the value they’d receive by selling that item (opportunity cost). Most of us would probably just throw the cheap toaster in the garbage. But if you needed the dough and had nothing more lucrative going on, you could put an ad on craigslist and make a few bucks. A lot of people used those 40 dollar digital TV converter box certificates from the government to go to walmart and pick one up, then sell it on ebay (for maybe a 5-10 dollar profit when all is said and done). A lot of work for 5 bucks. But obviously worth it to a lot of people, therefore those certificates have monetary value.

I’m not saying non-cash prizes don’t suck and you won’t end up getting less than they are supposedly worth if you trade them in for cash. . .I’m just saying that it is less accurate to value them at nothing, then to value them at something.

Have I won the debate yet? I want a gold star.