It isn't the typical sort of textbook demand (but it does correspond to the paper and pencil experiments that professors have run in microeconomics classes for decades). Instead, there is one potential buyer who has made public a reservation price of $10,000 for this good. So, the demand is a horizontal line at a price of $10,000 running from Q=0 to Q=1. Nonetheless, if there is someone out there who can produce such a good for under $10,000 there is a beneficial trade to be made (for theorists, the core is potentially non-empty). Lately, the core has enlarged as the reservation price of the buyer has risen to $37,900. And, the deal is even better for suppliers; by announcing his reservation price, the buyer has eliminated any power he had to bargain for a lower price.
What does it mean (economically) that there are no takers? It means that the reservation price of potential sellers is higher than $37,900. Common sense tells us that it can't cost $40K to type a memo. But a good economist will take that number seriously to come to one of two possible conclusions: 1) the only potential sellers are (say) Donald Trump, because their time is so valuable that getting paid $40K for typing a memo is too low, or 2) that the production of such a memo is impossible, making the supply of them vertical at Q=0. The latter is more likely, of course.
ROFL - if you can't find a circa 1972 typewriter, have no fear! GoogleAds has picked up on the interest in these in the blogosphere, and is posting GoogleAds to blogs for "classic" IBM Selectric, Lexmark, and other typewriters (there is an example here currently, but it may be changed in the future by Google).
As Marginal Revolution regularly reminds us - there is a market for everything.
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