Sounds like BS to me.

well, there could be a cat inside.

I'm fairly certain someone will pay the price because if they have an A2000 they can probably sell it 'boxed' for 5000+.

This is madness!

I guess we're just witnessing this hobby becoming a business. Like antique stores that sell old furniture and stuff. Did these existed 100 years ago?

schmatzler wrote on 2020-06-11, 20:31:

The one thing that always jucks me up is a machine coming from a heavy smoker and - of course - that was not mentioned in the li […]
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The one thing that always jucks me up is a machine coming from a heavy smoker and - of course - that was not mentioned in the listing.

Getting the smell out of a ThinkPad keyboard is almost impossible. I mostly throw those away and order a replacement one.
I wish people would just be honest and tell me beforehand, but I guess secretly they know that their addiction would drive down the price.

I prefer bug carcasses over the smell and stickyness of nicotine any day.

Same! I cannot stand that smell. And to touch it is as bad or worse! 🤢

That's why i only buy if it's dirt cheap. Had a guy on craigslist try to sell a tandy 1000 type system for $800. a quick look on eBay said it wasn't worth a third of that. I'm not paying crazy prices for the next Beanie Baby craze. I mean let's be honest. The number of people who know how to use a 8086 based computer in a 50 mile radius could probably fit in my kitchen. There's no demand for that kind of price i merely made an offer on an ad that looked like he was getting rid of old computer junk.

Cases. My rant is cases.

Other vintage parts are usually not *that* difficult to find. Expensive often yes, but not difficult. It only took me a few months of searching to find a 4 MB compaq deskpro 386 memory backplane. (The 4 MB daughter boards though... fucking unicorn jobbies them).

But cases? Because they're big and bulky, new old stock often costs more than it would have as new new stock, used either have horrendous markups, or just don't exist.

I'm on the hunt for a Coolermaster ATCS-200 for my year 2000 build. Can't find one for love nor money. And any "classic" beige AT midi-tower cases with the turbo button and the speed display (like something here: https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/06/17/my-u … uild-revisited/?) They just don't seem to exist this side of the pond. Ugh. But other people see them as common as muck.

I don't get how people have such success finding old and rare cases.

As much as I love the people on this forum, some of you are partly responsible for the market and you know who you are.
Not calling anyone out, but I seriously hope I never see you post in this thread or ever here you complain about anything related to it.
Because you contribute to over hyping items on youtube and on the forum plus you hoard things and create scarcity, then when it is rare cuz u hoarded it you resells stuff.
Then you post things on ebay for 2000 dollars etc etc Which cause people to overvalue some things. They see that price and they charge same thing.
Cuz if they don't you buy it from them and relist it for much higher. There are some people in this community that are literally driving this crazyness.
Profiting off the community instead of being a brother. I actually never see these people try to help others out around here, the only time they post things are to brag about something.

Vaudane wrote on 2020-08-26, 15:04:

Cases. My rant is cases.

same tip as for hardware also counts for cases... try and look for complete PCs instead, you get free hardware on top... ^^

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-26, 15:32:

As much as I love the people on this forum, some of you are partly responsible for the market and you know who you are.

Hypocrisy is everywhere in life and none of us are immune, but I agree there is some truth in your statement.

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-26, 15:32:

Profiting off the community instead of being a brother. I actually never see these people try to help others out around here, the only time they post things are to brag about something.

How easily one can forget that not all of us are in it for the money. That thread I started was basically for everyone to join in, but it turned into more of a solo act by me. Which is fine as I like to preserve computer history.

I believe am very guilty of hoarding "collecting", but I naively tell myself I'm doing it for the good cause of preserving old hardware ^^

last time I've sold some old hardware was like 20 years ago, and that was the one I used to own back then unfortunately.

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-26, 15:32:

Because you contribute to over hyping items on youtube and on the forum plus you hoard things and create scarcity, then when it is rare cuz u hoarded it you resells

Common mass-produced hardware won't become rare and expensive just because a few people bought more than 2 of them.
People get bored with them, sell them again, buy something else. It's the natural cycle of retro stuff.
It gets expensive when an influencer tells people it's rare and expensive.
People started saying 3dfx cards are special collector's items so more people bought them even though they didn't need them at all.
It's still a common item and you can get it cheap/for free when you avoid resellers and retro guys and get to the source: people who store their old computers in the attic. (just ask the guy who presented numerous 3dfx cards he got for free in the Dumpster find topic)
It gets expensive when you are impatient and want a specific 3dfx card immediately.
It's not because of collectors, it's a combination of greed and iwantitnow-ism.

Miphee wrote on 2020-08-26, 18:21:

People started saying 3dfx cards are special collector's items so more people bought them even though they didn't need them at all.

What? They didn't need them at all? Is there something that you collect that you also "need"?
Of course they don't need them, maybe some of them kinda need them to make a retro system, but most of such cards are collected only, not needed/used.

Miphee wrote on 2020-08-26, 18:21:

It's still a common item and you can get it cheap/for free when you avoid resellers and retro guys and get to the source: people who store their old computers in the attic. (just ask the guy who presented numerous 3dfx cards he got for free in the Dumpster find topic)

3dfx cards are not common anymore. They used to be a while ago, especially V3 2000, V3 3000 and Banshee, but now they are not common. Sure, you can still find them sometime for cheap/free, but that's the exception, not the rule.

I agree that Voodoo's have gotten expensive mostly because some decided they were the greatest old video card (or add-on) of the 90's but as one that has a massed a fair collection they were never my thing. I had friends give me their old Voodoo's back in late 90's/early 2000's because at that point they were becoming outdated and yes still have them. I will never buy one just because somethings just are not worth the current price and the few Glide games they excell at are not my cup of tea.. to each their own. It does amaze me that some some video cards (Voodoo 4 or 5, Nvidia GF7800/7900 AGP, etc) have gotten ridiculous in price. Just my opinion !

Horun wrote on 2020-08-27, 02:39:

I agree that Voodoo's have gotten expensive mostly because some decided they were the greatest old video card (or add-on) of the 90's but as one that has a massed a fair collection they were never my thing. I had friends give me their old Voodoo's back in late 90's/early 2000's because at that point they were becoming outdated and yes still have them. I will never buy one just because somethings just are not worth the current price and the few Glide games they excell at are not my cup of tea.. to each their own. It does amaze me that some some video cards (Voodoo 4 or 5, Nvidia GF7800/7900 AGP, etc) have gotten ridiculous in price. Just my opinion !

I have a couple spare Voodoo 3 cards (PCI and AGP ones) myself and one Voodoo 2 which I either kept from their heyday or acquired when nobody cared about them. I would be happy to find a Voodoo 4 or 5 just to give it a spin, but I am never going to pay the current going rate for one .

However, if I did not have any Voodoo 3 cards , I would be tempted to acquire one as I do find that they the nicely cover 3D acceleration from the early Direct3D up to the Glide era quite nicely while still having decent DOS compatibility as well as great VGA output quality . Though they may not have been all that fantastic in the 90s, I find them quite practical today . There limits, though, to what I would be willing to pay for one. AGP ones are available at less than 100 US$ , which is tolerable-ish, but the PCI ones are out of this world and not in a good way .

I'm glad I got most of the 3dfx cards I have before the prices went crazy. A lot of them, besides the V5-5500 I got as a spare for the one I bought new from CompUSA, came in lots with other cards.

I would like to have a PCI V5-5500 but that is most likely never going to happen.

RaverX wrote on 2020-08-26, 21:01:

What? They didn't need them at all? Is there something that you collect that you also "need"?
Of course they don't need them, maybe some of them kinda need them to make a retro system, but most of such cards are collected only, not needed/used.

Based on what? So people here build and test rigs just to collect them? TIL.

RaverX wrote on 2020-08-26, 21:01:

3dfx cards are not common anymore. They used to be a while ago, especially V3 2000, V3 3000 and Banshee, but now they are not common. Sure, you can still find them sometime for cheap/free, but that's the exception, not the rule.

I see them everywhere, they are very common. High price =/= rare.

Although the prices of Voodoo cards are stupid, I did pay quite a bit for an SC-55. There I feel the price is kind of justified: they were uncommon to begin with, and there really isn't anything else that matches it exactly and is much cheaper. MT-32s are way more expensive though, and that can easily be emulated.

I remember paying 10 euros for my DB60XG clone (the NEC version) 10 years ago from an IT store called NowThat'sIT in Wateringen (near The Hague).
They had multiple in stock back then but I only bought one, which I still own. Maybe I should've bought all of them 😀

RaverX wrote on 2020-08-26, 21:01:

What? They didn't need them at all? Is there something that you collect that you also "need"?
Of course they don't need them, maybe some of them kinda need them to make a retro system, but most of such cards are collected only, not needed/used.

Just wanted to say that there is a point where it's no more collecting/having a few spares/have a lot because you have a thing for some specific card. I mean having 50pcs of card x is none of these.