Buy or Sell

Buy or Sell
Premiere Date (Barker Era)	March 27, 1992 (#8365D)
Premiere Date (Carey Era)	December 11, 2007 (#4122K, aired out of order on December 10, 2007)
Pricing Game Location	Center Stage
Previous Premiered Pricing Game	Switch?
Next Premiered Pricing Game	Magic Number
Finale Date (Barker Era)	May 8, 2007 (#3982K)
Finale Date (Carey Era)	May 29, 2008 (#4354K)

In Buy or Sell, the contestant had to "buy" or "sell" three prizes and make a profit out of the deal in order to win all three prizes and a potential cash award.

Gameplay

• The contestant was shown three prizes, each with an incorrect price either above or below the actual price. One by one, the contestant had to determine whether to "buy" or "sell" a particular item. The goal was to "profit" by buying underpriced items, and selling overpriced items; if the player thought the displayed price was low, they would "buy", and if the displayed price was high, they would "sell."
• After all three decisions were made, the actual prices were revealed one at a time. For a correct decision, the difference between the prices was added to a bank. For a wrong decision, the difference was subtracted from the bank.
• After all three prices had been revealed, if the contestant had a positive total in the bank, he/she won all three prizes plus the bank total in cash. "Breaking even" (finishing with $0 in the bank) was considered a loss, although the prices were usually chosen to prevent this from happening.

History

• On its first playing, it was won.
• The cash bonus was not added to the game until October 30, 1997 (#0504K). The highest cash award possible in the game was $1,900 since the differences used are always multiples of $100 and the tote board could not display anything larger than "1" as its thousands digit. The highest amount of $1,900 was won three times.
• Buy or Sell's tote board was staged in several different locations over the course of its first few playings. On November 30, 1998 (#0921K), the digital readout on the board was changed from pink neon lights on a blue background (similar to Super Password displaying the jackpot amount for the bonus round) to greenish-blue LCD digits displayed on a black background, as the original tote board was hard to read. In the first few times this game was played, the purple base of the Buy or Sell tote board was much taller than it was later on.

Trivia

• The most number of times this game was played in any season was 20 (season 21), while the least number of times this game was played was 4.
• Like Race Game, Time is Money, Gas Money, Magic Number, Take Two, Ten Chances, Line 'Em Up, or More or Less, Buy or Sell has never been the first game to be played in the game slotting list because it needs time to start up and the game can be played no earlier than second on the show.
• Buy or Sell never offered 3 cars.

Gallery

To view the gallery, click here.

Retirement

• Buy or Sell was retired because too many contestants were confused by the concept of the game; not helping matters was the staff disliking the game itself. Strangely, the last time it was played, the price display was glitching. It was the first pricing game to be retired in the Drew Carey era.

YouTube Videos

Rain Man Michael plays Buy or Sell (March 20, 2003, #2474K, aired out of order on June 19, originally rescheduled to air on March 21)