imi wrote on 2020-06-29, 20:22:

I've seen prices double, triple, quadruple or more over just the last year on a lot of things.

even scrap lots are expensive nowadays.

It also happened in Hungary. Things I could easily afford last year are crazy expensive in 2020. It's a good thing I bought so much stuff last year because I couldn't buy shit now.
People spend more because they are afraid that the pandemic and the resulting economic changes will negatively impact their savings.
Some experts say it's the worst economic crisis since 1929 and the worst of the worst is ahead of us.

Mister Xiado wrote on 2020-06-29, 21:38:

People wanting $100 for an Atari XE GS light gun, and many times more for the bare computer, no keyboard, no joystick, no power supply... If I were rich, I think I would just buy some of these things, then visit the people at their homes, and slap them with what I bought until they stopped screaming.

That said, I get that you are unhappy, but the violence part, even in jest, is a bit intense, IMHO . This is, after all, just computer hardware we are talking about .

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-06-29, 20:13:

Almost all vintage/retro stuff has skyrocketed lately. Wrings hands at large stash.... I should be able to retire... heh.

🤣 sort of true ! I had my sister and brother in law over last weekend, he asked me why I was working on old stuff.... Showed him a few old parts and asked him to check ebay. He was shocked how much they were worth. I told him if something happens to me: DO NOT just trash it all, some is worth a lot. Think he understood, hope he did. Retire.. No, add to retirement... YES 😀

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-06-29, 21:14:

I blame alot of it personally on stuff being thrown away en mass during the ewaste incentives years ago. […]
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I blame alot of it personally on stuff being thrown away en mass during the ewaste incentives years ago.

Prices are bad, yeah, but I don't think theyl ever get as bad as retro console gaming has started to reach.

Atleast with retro PCs you can get games for cheap on GOG/Steam instead of having to pay up the ass for cartridges
on eBay.

Don't all cart based systems have custom ROM carts where you can fill them with dozens of games like a floppy emulator?

Unknown_K wrote on 2020-06-30, 02:38:

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-06-29, 21:14:

I blame alot of it personally on stuff being thrown away en mass during the ewaste incentives years ago. […]
Show full quote

I blame alot of it personally on stuff being thrown away en mass during the ewaste incentives years ago.

Prices are bad, yeah, but I don't think theyl ever get as bad as retro console gaming has started to reach.

Atleast with retro PCs you can get games for cheap on GOG/Steam instead of having to pay up the ass for cartridges
on eBay.

Don't all cart based systems have custom ROM carts where you can fill them with dozens of games like a floppy emulator?

Flashcarts? They do, but that's also usually an expense in the $150 + range. Atleast for a good one, and ofc then there's the whole rom debate I won't get into.

Horun wrote on 2020-06-30, 01:32:

I told him if something happens to me: DO NOT just trash it all, some is worth a lot.

You just described my biggest fear. I told my wife if they simply trash everything after I'm dead I'll come back to haunt them all.

Well, this is my rant:

I feel like hardware prices really did pick up sometimes by tenfold for items that were deemed undesirable and could be had for a few bucks just a few years ago. But what actually went through the roof seems to be big box games. There is a much greater interest for these than ever, for whatever reason. Things I could get on eBay in auctions that top at 5 bucks or so go on sale for BIN offers at 10 times that.

You may like the guys, but I feel like people like LGR, 8bit Guy etc. made this hobby more popular at the expense of making it a lot more expensive.. expense of expensive.. wait what? heh..

Yeah, something like that.

10 years ago almost nobody cared about old computers. Or if they did they weren't announcing it to the world.

20 years ago anything older than 1998 was either being thrown in the trash/recycled or given away.

TechieDude wrote on 2020-06-29, 12:19:

Freaking scalpers... That's why I keep my stuff even if I don't want it, because I would much rather just give it to a close friend and fellow nerd for free, than see it sold for an abysmal price mere minutes after having sold it myself for a reasonable price.

I found out "abysmal" was the exact opposite of what I meant. I wanted to say "insanely high". My bad. Just wanted to correct that.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-06-30, 07:57:

Well, this is my rant:

I feel like hardware prices really did pick up sometimes by tenfold for items that were deemed undesirable and could be had for a few bucks just a few years ago. But what actually went through the roof seems to be big box games. There is a much greater interest for these than ever, for whatever reason. Things I could get on eBay in auctions that top at 5 bucks or so go on sale for BIN offers at 10 times that.

You may like the guys, but I feel like people like LGR, 8bit Guy etc. made this hobby more popular at the expense of making it a lot more expensive.. expense of expensive.. wait what? heh..

I think this has made certain more popularized parts more expensive (like ss7 stuff and the lower end 3dfx stuff), but I don't think it's just this.
If there were for instance roughly a stable amount of people buying and selling these parts, prices would probably either stay stable or rise only slowly over time (partially due to postage costs and people not liking making a loss and parts dying off with the dead parts still being good enough to end up on display).
Many retro computer hobbyists have no drive to make as much money from their hobby as they can or at least not in a similar magnitude as some of the more hardcore collectors and the traders are.
The worst are probably the scalpers (of which one could arguably say that Ebay is the biggest scalper out there) and especially the people who mostly do buying low and selling high without even having the intention to actually use it.

One interesting question would be: How many retro computing hobbyists have we had at any point in time? Has the amount of people gone up this much? Because I doubt it.

Lets just think of an example: Suppose half the people who buy these parts are scalpers. This would mean that about half the parts that they buy, are gonna get resold to someone more expensively (and possibly with more stuff missing from it or more damaged due to handling and mistakes etc) where without this scalper, this same person would have gotten his parts for more cheaply without any adverse effects.
Another adverse effect of scalpers is that they will tend to dredge into the existing pool of parts, effectively making parts less common amongst retro computer hobbyists which will also help in making parts harder to find.
Now lets change this to not half are scalpers but 90% are scalpers. This would make prices go up even more even if the ttoal number of parts and the total number of retro computer hobbyists remain the same. Scalpers add nothing except parasitizing off of the retro computer hobbyist realm, effectively slowly bleeding it with no gain for the host, so to say.
My guess is that adding people who are not even retro computer hobbyists to the pool of people who want to get these parts (and even more so to sell at a higher price later) are the worst reason why this is getting so expensive now. It's clear to see when looking at how much more for instance 3dfx has gone up in price compared to how much contemporary stuff has gone up in price, like TNT2 M64, even if performance is still the same.
Some stuff has been going up for a longer while, usually anything with "Ultra" in the name and also stuff which is getting hyped, like for instance saying some part xxx or part yyy is getting really sought after, even when it is not really. It's like covid breaking out and everybody rushing for the toilet paper, it's really very awkward.

imi wrote on 2020-06-29, 21:21:

the nice thing about PCs is that you can get a pretty decent retro PC still without getting any of the rare and special expensive parts, just stick to common hardware, it'll still be awesome :3

Definitely this! 😁

Tetrium wrote on 2020-06-30, 18:14:

My guess is that adding people who are not even retro computer hobbyists to the pool of people who want to get these parts (and even more so to sell at a higher price later) are the worst reason why this is getting so expensive now.

And that's why it's smart to cut these guys out of the loop whenever it's possible.
I bought 3 slot1 boards for X amount while a reseller on an auction site offered a single slot1 board for 3X. He still sold it!
As long as people buy at 3X resellers are going to increase prices and buy up everything to make a profit.
I don't buy anything on auction sites anymore, too many resellers.
Granted, it's slower that way but it's the only way to get hardware at reasonable prices.

Tetrium wrote on 2020-06-30, 18:14:

My guess is that adding people who are not even retro computer hobbyists to the pool of people who want to get these parts (and even more so to sell at a higher price later) are the worst reason why this is getting so expensive now. It's clear to see when looking at how much more for instance 3dfx has gone up in price compared to how much contemporary stuff has gone up in price, like TNT2 M64, even if performance is still the same.

Yeah, the 3dfx case is really extreme. I remember that years ago I got a NOS matching set of 2 x BlackMagic Voodoo 2 cards (with SLI and passthrough cables, manual and drivers) from some russian guy who had a massive stock. I paid about $30 + shipping for the 2 cards, and at the time I was hesitant to spend that much! I would barely be able to buy the passthrough cable with that money now 🤣.

I mean, I'm glad I have them, but I wouldn't be willing to spend the current asking prices on a relatively common item like a V2. Unless it is new in box, I would hesitate to call it a "collector's item".

Tetrium wrote on 2020-06-30, 18:14:

My guess is that adding people who are not even retro computer hobbyists to the pool of people who want to get these parts (and even more so to sell at a higher price later) are the worst reason why this is getting so expensive now.

Sometimes this hardware is actually needed for ships, medical or other specialised equipment etc.

Miphee wrote on 2020-06-30, 19:02:

And that's why it's smart to cut these guys out of the loop whenever it's possible. I bought 3 slot1 boards for X amount while a […]
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Tetrium wrote on 2020-06-30, 18:14:

My guess is that adding people who are not even retro computer hobbyists to the pool of people who want to get these parts (and even more so to sell at a higher price later) are the worst reason why this is getting so expensive now.

And that's why it's smart to cut these guys out of the loop whenever it's possible.
I bought 3 slot1 boards for X amount while a reseller on an auction site offered a single slot1 board for 3X. He still sold it!
As long as people buy at 3X resellers are going to increase prices and buy up everything to make a profit.
I don't buy anything on auction sites anymore, too many resellers.
Granted, it's slower that way but it's the only way to get hardware at reasonable prices.

Patience.. lots of patience helps as well. I get most of my stuff through eBay. There are still good/great deals to be had but they are getting spaced out more and more. A few months ago I scored a boxed GUS for $35 on eBay.

I wish eBay would let me have more than 100 saved searches on my account though.

Miphee wrote on 2020-06-30, 19:02:

And that's why it's smart to cut these guys out of the loop whenever it's possible. I bought 3 slot1 boards for X amount while a […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote on 2020-06-30, 18:14:

My guess is that adding people who are not even retro computer hobbyists to the pool of people who want to get these parts (and even more so to sell at a higher price later) are the worst reason why this is getting so expensive now.

And that's why it's smart to cut these guys out of the loop whenever it's possible.
I bought 3 slot1 boards for X amount while a reseller on an auction site offered a single slot1 board for 3X. He still sold it!
As long as people buy at 3X resellers are going to increase prices and buy up everything to make a profit.
I don't buy anything on auction sites anymore, too many resellers.
Granted, it's slower that way but it's the only way to get hardware at reasonable prices.

You can't blame it on the buyers. Ar at least not fully.
The problem as I described it isn't the buyers buying at the scalper's asking price. The problem as I described are more to do with these scalpers being an actual thing period.

TheMobRules wrote on 2020-06-30, 19:58:

Tetrium wrote on 2020-06-30, 18:14:

My guess is that adding people who are not even retro computer hobbyists to the pool of people who want to get these parts (and even more so to sell at a higher price later) are the worst reason why this is getting so expensive now. It's clear to see when looking at how much more for instance 3dfx has gone up in price compared to how much contemporary stuff has gone up in price, like TNT2 M64, even if performance is still the same.

Yeah, the 3dfx case is really extreme. I remember that years ago I got a NOS matching set of 2 x BlackMagic Voodoo 2 cards (with SLI and passthrough cables, manual and drivers) from some russian guy who had a massive stock. I paid about $30 + shipping for the 2 cards, and at the time I was hesitant to spend that much! I would barely be able to buy the passthrough cable with that money now 🤣.

I mean, I'm glad I have them, but I wouldn't be willing to spend the current asking prices on a relatively common item like a V2. Unless it is new in box, I would hesitate to call it a "collector's item".

I remember! I was actually surprised seeing V2 cards go for €25 a piece. Ok, these were boxed items but it still surprised me. But having seen their actual selling price on sites like Ebay almost made my eyes pop out of their sockets with sheer amazement 😮

Years ago I saw 486 stuff having gone up a lot, but prices of those seem to have been stable for the most recent years except for maybe some particular boards like iirc the Asus SP3.

TechieDude wrote on 2020-06-30, 20:15:

Tetrium wrote on 2020-06-30, 18:14:

My guess is that adding people who are not even retro computer hobbyists to the pool of people who want to get these parts (and even more so to sell at a higher price later) are the worst reason why this is getting so expensive now.

Sometimes this hardware is actually needed for ships, medical or other specialised equipment etc.

But this has basically always been the case so that in itself is no reason why the prices have gone up the last couple years.

TechieDude wrote on 2020-06-30, 20:15:

Tetrium wrote on 2020-06-30, 18:14:

My guess is that adding people who are not even retro computer hobbyists to the pool of people who want to get these parts (and even more so to sell at a higher price later) are the worst reason why this is getting so expensive now.

Sometimes this hardware is actually needed for ships, medical or other specialised equipment etc.

Some otherwise worthless and obsolete hardware (Alpha processor based workstations and servers come to mind) are sold at artificially inflated prices to businesses who can't afford to upgrade a 20-something year old piece of hardware that absolutely has to have a computer running either a discontinued OS or an old version of an OS that can't run on more modern CPUs.

On the local classifieds website there’s a seller supposedly from a computer related business with loads of old hardware that has everything for at least 2x what other “regular” people are asking. There are no prices shown so I asked if he had some stuff I was looking for and he did, but when I saw the prices I said it was too much and I could get the same stuff from other sellers for a lot less. It would just take me longer. His reasoning was, like someone mentioned before, that the hardware was meant for professional users that needed to replace some old part that broke down.

I highly doubt he has ever sold anything.

I wish eBay would let me have more than 100 saved searches on my account though.

Just create multiple eBay accounts. This also allows you to compartmentalise searches, e.g. one account for old computers, one for music, one for video games, one for books, etc.