PCemu.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-05-21, 10:46:

PCemu.

Is a great curiosity, but most retro enthusiasts want to feel the physical hardware, so PCemu can only marginally reduce the target market, nothing more.

I’d imagine that the biggest driver to currently reduced prices is the cost of living crisis being faced by most western nations due to the war on Ukraine affecting global food prices and disrupting the supply chain for a lot of new products, which has a knock-on effect of an economic downturn.

Legacy hardware is a finite resource that is reducing in usable quantities relatively consistently (thanks entropy!), as such prices will in general only increase with time.

paradigital wrote on 2023-05-21, 10:56:

Legacy hardware is a finite resource that is reducing in usable quantities relatively consistently (thanks entropy!), as such prices will in general only increase with time.

..as long as interest in it isn't declining faster 😀

So you would say that my observation was just an exception or simply the ususal market value? I thought in particular Tualatin boards were sought after but I may very well be wrong there. Or only boards with ISA-port are high priced?

PCemu is around for some time now and prices were rising anyway.

but most retro enthusiasts want to feel the physical hardware

Hardware retro enthusiasts are niche of a niche. Majority just want to play old games hassle free. Maybe collect some actual physical games on top of that. Because that's what actually matters more.

PCemu is around for some time now and prices were rising anyway.

Well, until PCemu wasn't brough up by Linus...

Or only boards with ISA-port are high priced?

Well, that too. Why would you need PIII without ISA?

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-05-21, 11:22:

but most retro enthusiasts want to feel the physical hardware

Hardware retro enthusiasts are niche of a niche. Majority just want to play old games hassle free. Maybe collect some actual physical games on top of that.

But that hasn't changed and the niche is only getting bigger (at least that's what I thoght)

Well, until PCemu wasn't brough up by Linus...

I haven't noticed this video. But I would tend to say that such a 'mass-media'-video just increases interest in old hardware. People who didn't know about PCemu at that point probably weren't into this hobby anyway. So they weren't driving the prices up. But some of those who watched the video will now get the idea to build a real machine. And to make things worse: they enter the market now and accept the current prices as 'normal' and so some of them will be willing to pay even slightly more

Or only boards with ISA-port are high priced?

Well, that too. Why would you need PIII without ISA?

Because it's the fastest P3 you can build? You only need ISA for DOS and for that you don't need a Tualatin anyway.

However, I accept that in reality prices for those items seem to be lower than I thought 😀

video just increases interest in old hardware

I doubt that. Like I said, majority of interested people tend to pay more interest to game stuff an not ugly gray boxes from 90s. That also applies to old consoles. Because emulation is more convenient.

Because it's the fastest P3 you can build?

PIII itself is redundant, unless it comes with additional things that is usually associated with it.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-05-21, 11:41:

video just increases interest in old hardware

I doubt that. Like I said, majority of interested people tend to pay more interest to game stuff, than ugly gray boxes from 90s. That also applies to old consoles. Because emulation is more convenient.

Have you seen the price of original retro game consoles? People want the physical hardware.

Same goes for none-computing tech, like stereo/hi-fi kit.

Have you seen the price of original retro game consoles?

Actual games are valued way more.

like stereo/hi-fi kit.

Which is a very special can of worms called audiophilia.

My observations are exactly the opposite: sought after items have reached crazy prices and that brought new people into the market, trying to sell common stuff they had stored as garbage for "rare vintage" prices. Which has risen prices for things they were priced reasonably until now.

Another observation is that this market doesn't take a common direction globally but is affected by the circumstances in different areas and the mentality of people in these areas.

There isn't a fixed value for any of this, it's mostly just luck. On day one it's $30, day 2 it's $200, day 3 it's $5.

There are many factors: do people start a dumb bidding war to satisfy their need to impulse buy something and defeat the other person?
Are there scalpers in the house?
Do we have people with tons of disposable cash?
Is it the end of the month of did everyone just get their paychecks?
Is the item in The Land of Plenty or is it somewhere less capitalisty?
Is it local pickup or can it be shipped in one piece?
Is it tested, damaged, boxed, scratched, modified in any way?
Is there a photo that isn't a blurry mess?
And finally, is it desirable or is it despised?

I found the best (AND the worst) deals with the worst looking, riskiest items that turned out to be treasure.
Looking for one specific thing on Ebay that's highly sought after? It's going to cost you unless you are really lucky.
You "get your hands dirty" and start browsing small local classifieds? That's where the real deals are made. If you can wait that long.

Mandrew wrote on 2023-05-21, 14:05:

There isn't a fixed value for any of this, it's mostly just luck. On day one it's $30, day 2 it's $200, day 3 it's $5.

Indeed that seems to be the case with the soundcards above. I did some more research and the prices for them are just all over the place. E.g. CT 1350 were sold apx. from 15 to 130 Euro. And I mean sold, not offered. (Most buy-now-prices are just insane and annoying to skip through. It's too bad that ebay mutated from an auction-site to a market-place)

To be honest, I never really looked at the prices because i (almost) never bought things at ebay crazy prices.

I'm patient, browse a lot of local ads. I very rarely pay more than 50€/$ for a single piece. And I was still able to get most of the parts i was looking for.

Since i bought most things at low prices, i'm not worried about prices variations (low or high)

Personally I don't buy stuff from Ebay, apart from one or two items that are absolutely never going to appear locally, like newly made retro items and such.

Looking around the forums' posts it's clear that in some countries Ebay makes no sense and is not a reference at all for pricing (and local sellers who base their prices on it quickly find out that people won't buy them), whereas in others Ebay can even be the only way to obtain stuff. Generally less richer countries still have retro stuff appearing regularly as people kept the stuff longer and don't discard it so easily. On the other hand countries like Germany had their citizens accessing home computing earlier than normal, and is more common place to find 286, 386 there than in other places. A user made a thread not long ago asking for help as he couldn't find retro stuff in Germany, which left me a little baffled really.

E-recycling policies are also a big factor. Switzerland used to be a heaven for curb pickups with absolutely incredible stuff, computers, truly high end turntables, speakers, amps, you name it, left on the street for people to take every single day. Lots of immigrants picked stuff up in their trucks, filled them up and transported it back to their countries to sell. Eventually they changed their laws and now it's next to impossible finding the most uninteresting of beige cases in the used marketplace, and nothing left on the curb. People there today either already collected their stuff in the past or have no other way than to buy it abroad, and with expensive importing charges from the EU or beyond. So there are no perfect realities. The United States have more stuff and variety than any other country but it's all very spread out through its huge geography, apart from California or Texas for computers, or Seattle for gaming, at least in the past...

Buying locally or inside my country allowed me to have access to what I wanted and needed and I'm quite happy at this point, I'm not a collector, just wanted to make some specific builds and that's it. ISA Sound Blaster cards are a little less expensive than on Ebay but not by much, maybe 25 to 50 euros on average, as not a lot of people had home computers around here in the 386/486 era, and those who did a lot of times had only the PC Speaker which was my case as a kid, so a SB Vibra for 5 euros ended up being more than enough for me. So the sellers in that regard try to push it slightly upwards. But you can circumvent that as complete 486 PCs usually start from 50 to around 100 euros, so you can just go for that if it makes sense to you. Moving on to Pentium era then it opens up, and you can get Pentium, Pentium II, III or IV computers for anything between 5 to 20 euros if you're patient, and if you pick it up locally most of the times you get the full peripherals set and whatever else. And it's always more rewarding than paying the same price for a specific part.

I was prepared to wait patiently for an Inwin A500 case appearing, as my father used to have one, and I wanted to build a 1.4Ghz Tualatin based PC in it to finish my builds. It popped up locally a few weeks later for 10 euros and it came with a useful Asus CUV4-X... Got some 17" Samsung SyncMaster CRTs for 5 euros each and I'm done. So of course Ebay makes no sense.

CRT TVs are easy to find and cheap too... but as people said it's different with retro consoles everywhere apparently, it's all getting very expensive. Apart from the Mega Drive and Playstation which sold much more here, it's all going upwards non-stop, especially the games themselves. If you want a ZX Spectrum it's getting up there now, and even more for Amigas... But if you want a Pentium era PC, especially a socket 370, it's still very cheap and easy to find.

People forget for example when they see the images of smashed CRT monitors and TVs in shipping that some folks truly don't have any other way of accessing these items anymore, so they take a chance...

But in general all around I feel it too, it's definitely calming down price wise. We're not getting any younger and there's already a living generation to which all of this will just be junk, either in perception or literally as it won't work and they won't have the skills or even the will to fix them up. So as I see it use your stuff, cash in in the next 5 to 15 years on your collectibles that you don't use or got as an investment for future sales, and be happy!

paradigital wrote on 2023-05-21, 10:56:

Is a great curiosity, but most retro enthusiasts want to feel the physical hardware, so PCemu can only marginally reduce the tar […]
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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-05-21, 10:46:

PCemu.

Is a great curiosity, but most retro enthusiasts want to feel the physical hardware, so PCemu can only marginally reduce the target market, nothing more.

I’d imagine that the biggest driver to currently reduced prices is the cost of living crisis being faced by most western nations due to the war on Ukraine affecting global food prices and disrupting the supply chain for a lot of new products, which has a knock-on effect of an economic downturn.

Legacy hardware is a finite resource that is reducing in usable quantities relatively consistently (thanks entropy!), as such prices will in general only increase with time.

I bet this applies to others, but I've been interested in this stuff since it was current, and then COVID came and I was bored at home... Some of that could be wearing off too.

whilst the idea that things get rarer and therefore more in demand is likely true even now the whole thing depends on ability to pay, if enough people lose enough ability to pay then prices drop against previous sale prices - even as the 'rise' relative to things dropping even more

i have found prices to be more - but that's because i tend toward the cheapest things, so notice shipping more!

Speaking for myself, I just got into retro computing less than a year ago. I'm in a position where I never kept any of the stuff I had back in the 90's - early 2000s, so I'm looking to re-create things I used to have (or wished to have had). I'm in Canada and in a small enough community where stuff just isn't available locally. So... for many things, I've sucked it up and played the eBay game. So, eBay prices are kind of all I know and any time I can get pretty much *anything* for less than $50 I'm very grateful.

(One thing I'd decided to just not bother trying with was a CRT, but I recently managed to score a 17" ViewSonic for only $50 shipping from the US - it has to have been a listing error on the vendor's part, but either way it's shipped and on the way!)

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-21, 21:07:

managed to score a 17" ViewSonic for only $50 shipping from the US - it has to have been a listing error on the vendor's part, but either way it's shipped and on the way!)

Is it was listed as brand new?

informatyk wrote on 2023-05-21, 22:09:

ubiq wrote on 2023-05-21, 21:07:

managed to score a 17" ViewSonic for only $50 shipping from the US - it has to have been a listing error on the vendor's part, but either way it's shipped and on the way!)

Is it was listed as brand new?

Not at all! It was just under the wire $$$-wise for it to be worth it to roll the dice on it, so we'll see...

To give an idea of uncertainty of ebay pricing I've just sold my last of 4 unopened copies of Office Mac 2011 Home & Business.
All exactly the same. £1 start price, 10 day auction, only difference was time as next on the list wouldn't go live till the one before sold
£16.21
£12.39
£28.00
£31.00
No where did I mention stock levels so it's not like whoever paid £31 knew that was my last copy to drive up the price double of what the first sold for. end f the day watch the market first get an idea of what things sell for on average and bid accordingly, or maybe pay a bit more but get your item quicker.