I was watching season 3, episode 18 of Elementary. When the episode was filmed in 2013 taxi medallions in New York City were running about a million dollars.
Robert Wenzel at Economic Policy Journal wrote about the high prices,
Bloomberg “doesn’t have the balls to go after the taxi medallion owners, who have the political power to ban an increase in the number of taxis cruising the streets of NYC. The ban inconveniences millions. Try getting a cab in NYC during a rainstorm. Prices would be half what they are now if the Slurpee-Nazi has real balls and ended the nonsense.”
Today medallions are running anywhere from $110,000 to over $200,000.
What caused the fall in prices? Ride sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft have brought more competition into the market,. More competition put less demand for taxis and predictably medallion prices fell in price.