Hot retro products, and what they cost today

Some say "One man's vestige is another man's vintage," while others retort, "The 1970s called: They want their necktie back."

Either way, there's an irresistible lure that all of us feel, sometime or another, to seek out items so out of fashion that they're back in fashion. Yet that creates a fascinating (or frustrating) dilemma: Will you, or should you, pay a premium for something that just a few years back might have cost pennies at a garage sale?

While there's no way to answer that question with absolute certainty — even with a slide rule — it's fun to take a look at the retro items that have come back against all odds, and get an idea of what they're worth today. Here are five examples of doing the time warp, retail style.

All but dead a decade ago, the resurgence of record players can be credited to 7-inch singles and EPs, the format of choice for many indie bands. Young, Pearl Jam and hot-act-du-jour Daft Punk are among those major artists releasing on vinyl.

Back in the day: The Thorens TD-125 Mark II turntable sold for about $200 between 1972 and 1975. That's about $1,330 in today's money.

Today: Turntable prices vary wildly, starting as low as $40. But a cheapo model could destroy your records due to flimsy needles and bad tonearm balance. Your best bet is something like the Audio Technica AT-LP120-USB, top rated by the Wire Cutter. Then again, the audiophiles there note that craft turntables can fetch more than $30,000 today.

There are two ways to explain the popularity of typewriters. One is that they make charming antiques to stick in a writer's office or somesuch. But there's also nostalgia for a Luddite technology that forces the user to concentrate only on the task at hand: no e-mail checking, no Facebook noodling, etc. Plus, as the Palm Beach Post recently noted, the NSA can't spy on you when you use a typewriter.

Today: Vintage, working IBM electrics sell from between $60 and $600 on eBay. Just think: $600 in today's money would have been $93 in 1969.

Fountain pens would seem almost a relic, but they never left the hearts of collectors. Now a new class of users has entered the fold. The BBC reports that fountain pen sales have jumped in recent years, anywhere from 5 to 10 percent annually. They explain it this way: "If a president signs a treaty, they don't do it with a Bic Cristal. If you give a loved one a pen, your thoughts might be more fountain than ballpoint."

Back in the day: Parker pens ran $20 in the 1960s, just at the time when ballpoint pens began to eclipse them.

Today: The range is wide on this inky side, but you could pay anywhere from $35 to $300 for a typical pen. But if that doesn't suit you, a Montblanc Meisterstuck 146 Medium Gold Fountain Pen will set you back $10,000. No word on what the ink refills cost.

When most clothing sold in the U.S. was made in the U.S., seamstresses worked on primitive electric sewing machines with hand-threaded bobbins and leg pumps that looked like organ pedals with an attitude. Machines today are still relatively cheap, durable and simple — though many models used today are a bit more modern than their foot-driven predecessors. And they've made a comeback, with sales double what they were just a decade ago.

Today: A vintage Singer 201 from the same era sells for about $350 fully refurbished; a new Singer Heavy Duty Mechanical Sewing Machine runs $131.30 at Wal-Mart.

Polaroid cameras could claim Outkast as the catalyst for their comeback, but ultimately it comes down to sentimentality. (And, according to the Guardian, celebrities who don't want photos to be easily uploaded to the Internet.) The Impossible Project took over manufacturing of Polaroid products in 2007, and here's what the company said: "Over the past six months, we have doubled the volume of films we sell and refurbished more than 30,000 classic Polaroid cameras. Next year, we expect these numbers to double." Meanwhile, Taylor Swift has Polaroid artwork all over her album "1989."

Back in the day: A Polaroid SX-70 camera cost almost $200 in the mid-1970s, or about $800 today.

Today: Impossible's version of the SX-70 runs $360 at Urban Outfitters.