This month I stumbled across an interesting service that complements auction culture. It’s called Cierge and the best way to understand it is to think of a concierge service for consumer electronics. Cierge is a division of Sony and provides its members with VIP access to their product line. Specifically, Cierge gets a special allocation of Sony products before they are released to the general public. As a member, you get the latest, greatest cameras, computers, game consoles and other goodies months before they are readily available in stores.

The price for access - a cool $1500 a year (you get free membership if you are an American Express Black Card cardholder). Given the cost, membership tends to be made up of people that are either tech junkies (like me) or tech-challenged (those that require special hand-holding when buying technology - Cierge will actually come to your home to install anything you buy if needed).

So why am I writing about this service? Simple. By being able to buy the newest gadgets in advance of broad public availability, you can enjoy owning these products for less. How? Because you get to own the newest gadgets depreciation free for several months. Typically, during the first few months of a new product’s life, it isn’t easy for people to get their hands on it. During that period, these products trade at a premium because people are willing to pay more to own the newest things (for example, the Xbox 360 is currently trading on eBay at almost 2X MSRP in its second month).

So by joining Cierge, you technically can amortize your cost for electronics over a much longer period than the average person. When it comes time to upgrading to the next best model, you can flip the old model to someone on eBay during a period when 1) it is still a current model and 2) you already got a lot of use out of it.

You can also use Cierge a different way - to try out the latest products for free! How? Buy the item, try it for a month or so, and if you are unhappy with the purchase, you can probably sell it online at cost (and sometimes at a profit) since there are always people willing to pay a premium for the newest hard-to-get models.

If you are interested in joining, call 877-295-7669 - They are so exclusive that they don’t have a website. But you can view Sony’s latest products at www.sonystyle.com.

For a list of the 50 greatest gadgets of all time, click here.