See if you can buy the keyboard alone for €5, you will make more money that way for sure.

5€ for the keyboard are really really low price, close to impossible.

you think that IBM Pentium1 are a bad investment for future??

The seller might not know. PCs are difficult to onsell due to weight and postage costs, and the fact there is nothing special about it. Good model M keyboards can sell for hundreds of dollars. All I am saying is if you can get it cheap, has much more potential to profit.

AlessandroB wrote on 2020-05-18, 22:55:

5€ for the keyboard are really really low price, close to impossible.

you think that IBM Pentium1 are a bad investment for future??

Some IBM Pentiums are worth grabbing as are some of their newer (and older stuff). If they can show you it boots up at least to the BIOS and tries to boot from floppy/HD with no keyboard errors then I would grab a few if I could. They are probably missing the HD's but getting a complete IBM case, motherboard, keyboard, etc is always worth while even in the Pentium era. I would do some research on which are the better IBM Pentiums (those that can run a 200MMX as example) as they will be more valuable than those limited to say a P-60 or P-75. Just my opinion...

kolderman wrote on 2020-05-18, 23:02:

See if you can buy the keyboard alone for €5, you will make more money that way for sure.
----
The seller might not know. PCs are difficult to onsell due to weight and postage costs, and the fact there is nothing special about it. Good model M keyboards can sell for hundreds of dollars. All I am saying is if you can get it cheap, has much more potential to profit.

You do realize this Forum is all about restoring old hardware and not how to make a profit off good purchases, right ?

Horun wrote on 2020-05-18, 23:08:

kolderman wrote on 2020-05-18, 23:02:

See if you can buy the keyboard alone for €5, you will make more money that way for sure.
----
The seller might not know. PCs are difficult to onsell due to weight and postage costs, and the fact there is nothing special about it. Good model M keyboards can sell for hundreds of dollars. All I am saying is if you can get it cheap, has much more potential to profit.

You do realize this Forum is all about restoring old hardware and not how to make a profit off good purchases, right ?

Well that's what OP was asking.

Horun wrote on 2020-05-18, 23:08:

kolderman wrote on 2020-05-18, 23:02:

See if you can buy the keyboard alone for €5, you will make more money that way for sure.
----
The seller might not know. PCs are difficult to onsell due to weight and postage costs, and the fact there is nothing special about it. Good model M keyboards can sell for hundreds of dollars. All I am saying is if you can get it cheap, has much more potential to profit.

You do realize this Forum is all about restoring old hardware and not how to make a profit off good purchases, right ?

sure, but restoring pc is expensive and for ecample you buy 3 computers and selling one allows you to get the money you need to repair the other 2.

I'm not talking about profit as if it were a job but a way to be able to continue investing in repairing and testing.

What's so expensive at repairing a PC ? Capacitors cost just a few cents, SD cards + adapter cost 20 bucks at most and other parts can often be gotten for cheap in lots, but they don't fail that often and they often cost more when you're looking for something specific.
Fixing my Compaq Deskpro 386s/20N costed me at most 15 bucks.

On the other hand I get that getting the right tools to fix them can get quite expensive (soldering iron + desoldering iron + hot air station + multimeter + rom programmer ...), but when you get good quality tools, they'll last you for a long time and will help you to fix so many things that their investment will be worth it.

kolderman wrote on 2020-05-18, 23:20:

Well that's what OP was asking.

Maybe you should re-read what you posted. Is possible/most likely you just made "X part" go up more in my area due to your post. They were expensive enough as it is without clarifying it.

Well delete the whole thread if it's that big a deal...

Deksor wrote on 2020-05-18, 23:53:

What's so expensive at repairing a PC ? Capacitors cost just a few cents, SD cards + adapter cost 20 bucks at most and other parts can often be gotten for cheap in lots, but they don't fail that often and they often cost more when you're looking for something specific.
Fixing my Compaq Deskpro 386s/20N costed me at most 15 bucks.

On the other hand I get that getting the right tools to fix them can get quite expensive (soldering iron + desoldering iron + hot air station + multimeter + rom programmer ...), but when you get good quality tools, they'll last you for a long time and will help you to fix so many things that their investment will be worth it.

I talked generically about fixing but it's not just that. All our hobby is expensive, last year I inadvertently burned a € 200 sbc doing tests and tests. The A4000 cards (I know that here we only talk about PCs, but many of us also have them) have exorbitant prices and replacing them when some IC burns out is even worse. These types of actions require fresh investments from time to time, and if in the markets of the place where you live there are deals that if not bought by us, they would be destroyed, I don't see how bad it is.

Ah ok, yeah non pc stuff can be costly to fix.

@AlessandroB:

If you think this way, you have the wrong hobby. Especially since you asked: "Do you think it is a good investment to buy them and then sell them online in the future?"

That's purely about money-making and don't even fit the explanation you tried to give. If you are after profit, that's ok, but be honest about it.

I don't see what the problem is, in OP's own words

AlessandroB wrote on 2020-05-18, 22:21:

I would also save them from destruction ...

Much better to have them available on a national/international platform then local market as lets face it, this is still a niche hobby. and If he makes a bit of cash on the side then I'm cool with that.

I feel that way as well, I've seen so many parts being put in bins for extremely cheap in flea markets. I can't believe they'd keep that afterwards. It's probably last chance before trash (and sometimes I've asked to people if they had retro hardware and it was too late 🙁 )

Another time I got lucky and went to the seller's home and I picked almost everything he had in his 20s, the rest was going to trash

kolderman wrote on 2020-05-18, 23:20:

Well that's what OP was asking.

Yes you are right, he did ask. Sorry I have been a bit of an angry old fart lately and get a bit of 'tude over some things....