Oi leave the Australian stuff to us 🤣

Because those people sell it to make a living. Most of things i ever found (turtle beach pinnacle, Sigma VGA Legend, all my other tseng cards, 95% sound cards, etc) i found on junk yards, yard sales, and similar for a hand full of peanuts.

The only thing i spent more than 10 euro on was my SW1000XG. And thats not because im cheapskate its because im poor 🤣

Funnily I had the opposite impression, at least for semi-common stuff. For example if I wanted to buy a CT2230 right now there are several on US ebay for ~$20 but nothing at all on UK eBay. Maybe the situation is different for more rare items. We too have professional resellers who set high BIN prices but often they will accept lower offers to get an item shifted.

Yes I have noticed this long time ago and it frustrates me as I am having to rebuild my collection (house fire) plus the prices are unrealistically high. I know all about resale but pushing 5x of normal value prices is just stupidity and then there is eBay its self.

20$ for that card? I barely sold mine for 5 euro.
Since i can not sell on ebay, i started selling on AmiBay, a lot of time i see much cheaper prices than Ebay there. And overall friendlier communication.

I think its more about finding the right price than just clicking the first ad.

I have no choice but eBay. Live in the middle of nowhere 😀

1 advantage in Europe and definitely UK is nothing is that far away. So even if its not in your local area its still not that far to go pick up.
Stuff in the same state in Australia could take longer to collect then a train trip to Germany! USA would have the same problem I'd say.
Not so much an issue with ebay, but even then sometimes they have collect only such as my MU-10

Just a guess, but it could be a number of things. Perhaps in the USA people have simply recycled more goods more quickly then in Europe?

Perhaps in the USA people tend to sell more locally (craiglist or yardsales) instead of Ebay and Ebay is more for the people who want to make a profit and less about trying to get rid of it?

I don't really know. In The Netherlands theres basically 3 sites where I can buy or have bought old hardware, but any of the three has it's benefits and it's cons. Buying stuff locally (like fleamarkets and thriftstores) is also an option, but is limited in what's available (you need to be at the right place at the right time).

Perhaps people in the USA sell fewer items because it is less densely populated and the distances are so vast compared to compact Europe. Australia also isn't densely populated, but it's also a lot smaller.

Tetrium wrote:

Perhaps people in the USA sell fewer items because it is less densely populated and the distances are so vast compared to compact Europe. Australia also isn't densely populated, but it's also a lot smaller.

Don't see this as a problem when domestic shipping in the US costs a fraction of the shipping between EU countries.

vetz wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Perhaps people in the USA sell fewer items because it is less densely populated and the distances are so vast compared to compact Europe. Australia also isn't densely populated, but it's also a lot smaller.

Don't see this as a problem when domestic shipping in the US costs a fraction of the shipping between EU countries.

Thanks for pointing this out 😀

I've inspected my ebay history related to old hardware and found this ratio:

US: 16
China: 7
Germany: 6
UK: 5
Canada: 2
Ukraine: 2
France: 1
Spain: 1
Austria: 1

All retro-computing things I find in US ebay seem more than overpriced compared to prices in EU ebay's (I live in EU, it's my primary searh area). On the other hand, I can't find everything I want within EU limits and I end up paying for overpriced items + ridiculous shipping. I mean OK, I would expect something around $100 for a whole pc, but 50+ for just a card in a letter envelop? How much can bubbles cost? 😁
My experience is that more complete vintage computers/systems are available in German or UK ebay, but a greater variety of individual parts is available from US. But that's just me and my searches...

We americans are assholes and tend to see anything or retro as being worth more than pure gold and seem to price it accordingly on ebay. There are good deals to be had, I've picked up some items that were way below "average" for US ebay, but those are far less common. It actually works out better for us here in the US to find items on german ebay or whatnot and pay the difference in shipping. For certain things, it comes out way cheaper for us that way.

There is a big cultural divide between the US and EU (I am not familiar with CA or AU/NZ and elsewhere):
1: People in the EU do not think it is too much work to list something cheap and then ship it. They see it as putting something to good use that they would rather not throw out. People in the EU typically have a stronger work ethic.
2: People in the US think it is too much work to list something cheap and then ship it. They are typically motivated more by $ than anything else. People in the US typically have a weaker work ethic. They pretend to work a lot of hours in the office for example but they are just there longer without actually being more productive.

Just my personal experience: I lived in the EU for 30 years and in the US for 5 now. Based on personal experience: people in the US will ship right away for $100+; people in the EU are more motivated by a good story about why you would like to buy something than anything else.

Personally I think it is the fact that most consumer systems were OEM systems that didn't necessarily always have the best of parts: like a 256k Oak VGA or Trident compared to a Tseng VGA. You have to figure, we are looking for the "enthusiast" or "tweaker" grade hardware where in most cases that was a small portion of the market. They have always sold systems that will just barely run Windows and Office, and if you wanted better performance you have to do after-market upgrades yourself.
So while you might have had 100 million 486 class systems out there at one point, 90% have probably been landfilled or recycled by now and of the remainder, there is a much smaller number that have high-performance parts. So of that 10 million left, you have maybe 250,000 or 500,000 (or fewer? I'm just pulling these numbers out of thin air at this point) enthusiast-level systems. Whatever the actual breakdown is in terms of hard numbers, it stands to reason the good stuff is going to be harder to find if it was rarer to begin with and most of those systems have been recycled already.

The counter to that (very valid) argument is that high value items also remain longer as people hold on to them. 😀

PeterLI wrote:

There is a big cultural divide between the US and EU (I am not familiar with CA or AU/NZ and elsewhere): 1: People in the EU do […]
Show full quote

There is a big cultural divide between the US and EU (I am not familiar with CA or AU/NZ and elsewhere):
1: People in the EU do not think it is too much work to list something cheap and then ship it. They see it as putting something to good use that they would rather not throw out. People in the EU typically have a stronger work ethic.
2: People in the US think it is too much work to list something cheap and then ship it. They are typically motivated more by $ than anything else. People in the US typically have a weaker work ethic. They pretend to work a lot of hours in the office for example but they are just there longer without actually being more productive.

Just my personal experience: I lived in the EU for 30 years and in the US for 5 now. Based on personal experience: people in the US will ship right away for $100+; people in the EU are more motivated by a good story about why you would like to buy something than anything else.

Well, I've never worked anywhere but the US, but people are pretty much people everywhere you go. I would say that in the US we seem to value "facetime" so that even if you could technically do your job in 30 hours a week, you're required to be there for 40-50. As far as people being harder workers, I think you probably have the same percentage of slackers no matter where you're at.

As far as fussing about selling stuff on e-bay, I'd rather find a kid that is putting his first PC together to just give it to (or sell for some token price). In the age of the $35 raspberry pi, though, this is not as attractive to the kid (unless they like old stuff for some reason).

I gave a young cousin of mine a 2ghz Athlon system a while back with a Radeon 9000 AIW and some other nice parts, he seemed rather unimpressed when he got it so I don't know if his parents already had something better (I suspect) or he just didn't know how to articulate his thanks. I never got a "thank-you" so I'm assuming it ended up at Goodwill or something. This was a while ago, maybe 2006 so it wasn't exactly top of the line even back then but wasn't useless either. Maybe I was expecting too much, or maybe he just wasn't interested? I don't know.

senrew wrote:

We americans are assholes and tend to see anything or retro as being worth more than pure gold and seem to price it accordingly on ebay. There are good deals to be had, I've picked up some items that were way below "average" for US ebay, but those are far less common. It actually works out better for us here in the US to find items on german ebay or whatnot and pay the difference in shipping. For certain things, it comes out way cheaper for us that way.

I'm an American and I agree with this post. United States is full of idiots.

Tetrium wrote:

Just a guess, but it could be a number of things. Perhaps in the USA people have simply recycled more goods more quickly then in […]
Show full quote

Just a guess, but it could be a number of things. Perhaps in the USA people have simply recycled more goods more quickly then in Europe?

Perhaps in the USA people tend to sell more locally (craiglist or yardsales) instead of Ebay and Ebay is more for the people who want to make a profit and less about trying to get rid of it?

I don't really know. In The Netherlands theres basically 3 sites where I can buy or have bought old hardware, but any of the three has it's benefits and it's cons. Buying stuff locally (like fleamarkets and thriftstores) is also an option, but is limited in what's available (you need to be at the right place at the right time).

Perhaps people in the USA sell fewer items because it is less densely populated and the distances are so vast compared to compact Europe. Australia also isn't densely populated, but it's also a lot smaller.

The problem is two fold, one is that most tend to just dump their old stuff in the trash or take it to recycling so what does make it to the secondhand market like eBay, Craigs, or a yard sale is only a fraction. At best it is a trickle for older hardware but once in a blue moon one finds a cache of old goodies but that is horribly rare now days. Most crappy P4 and slightly newer office junk these days, very little of it is of any desirable value.