I don't see the prices coming down anytime soon. With inflation they probably will continue to increase.

There is a limited supply of inventory that's not going to increase.

It's possible there might be a slight drop once the free money that's floating around is spent, but the sellers are unlikely to drop their asking prices much. So it's going to be get lucky with when bidding or offering a lower price.

As always, just vote with your wallet - if no one purchases stuff at inflated prices, the sellers will have to lower prices in order to sell. Retro stuff is usually also very bulky (except graphic/sound cards and such), so they will most probably want it to be gone soon.

It's us who decides how much this stuff goes for - tell your retro-collecting friends to not spend crazy amounts and prices will go down eventually 😀

If they have the "make an offer" functionality turned on, I've had some luck going with making a 50% offer. But by some luck, I mean slightly better than no luck. Probably something like 1/10 offers get accepted.

I think some prices are coming down. The watch lists I have seem to have bifurcated to some degree. For example I watch Geforce 6800 GTs for spares, and for a hot minute every card was over $100. Lately I see some that get initially posted in the $40-60 range, and the usual resellers still trying to jack prices up to $120 and beyond.

no way

Vintage hardware is getting rarer because it's not going to thrift stores or anywhere you're likely to be able to grab it. It's going to e-recycling companies and being destroyed for materials. There are a few places where vintage hardware is still plentiful, like the Texas markets where PC was always big, but it's pretty much gone from most of America at this point. The vintage hardware I can find around here these days is usually something from 2005 or later and I occasionally find vintage 90's-early 2000's software on CD. I got lucky and picked up a bunch of Sidewinder joysticks a while back, but have pretty much been dry on the hardware side for the past few years.

Any time you get a run on prices of any vintage stuff, there's a peak, word gets around that the stuff has value, people go digging in their basements, closets and attics, there is a pullback as all that "new" stock hits the market, might only flatten the price for a bit rather than drop all that much, then that supply gets taken up and the prices continue upward.

It's all over the place though, if you've got a thing for Porsche 911s, yah, you shoulda got a fixer upper 15 years back when you could get one for $2000. If you wanna be sitting pretty on a pile of coveted junk in a decade, buy the stuff that's just unwanted and out of date now, like P4s, X2s, Xbox360s, PS3s... buy the stuff gen Z is chucking out as they hit their late teens and twenties and sell it back to them when they hit their thirties 🤣

jbenam wrote on 2021-08-11, 12:36:

As always, just vote with your wallet - if no one purchases stuff at inflated prices, the sellers will have to lower prices in order to sell. Retro stuff is usually also very bulky (except graphic/sound cards and such), so they will most probably want it to be gone soon.

you underestimate the patience of sellers :p

Prices have been going up for a while now.
Give you an idea back in 2010 my Diamond Monster Voodoo2 12MB cost £4.20 off eBay, The 2nd one was a bit pricy of a random web store for £20
Prices were well above that pre pandemic.

Covid probably helped the prices jump a bit faster then they would have but cant see older hardware going back down. Some of the less desiarable and mor emodern things like graphics cards may drop but it'll take a while yet

Prices were going up before the pandemic. Inflation might slow down for a bit but we will never go backwards.

What will be will be, que sera sera

The price hike is scary. I've got stuff I've accumulated over the last 30+ years, just sitting around. I hesitate to go down the rabbit hole of selling any of it. For then you're dealing with potential problems of picky sellers, packaging fragile components to sell, dealing with "lost" packages, fraud, and other nefarious things. I really don't want to open that can of worms -- along with the fact that, easily, 25-30% of everything you make will be "lost" to fees, down the slippery slope. So, even though I have Voodoo 2s, Pentium CPUs, early graphics cards, huge amounts of legacy memory, older CPUs, Abit motherboards, complete vintage systems, CRT monitors, lots of "mid-range" legacy components, selling it piecemeal just wouldn't be worth it. Or, perhaps I'm mistaken if a damn ZIP drive goes for $50+ now. Wonder what a Plextor 716 DVD Burner goes for, or a complete vintage P233 MMX with an old Abit IT5H rev. 1.5 motherboard, Voodoo, original GUS, etc goes for? Or a new-in-box Voodoo 3-3000 (have both AGI and PCI versions)? Stuff I've just had sitting around for decades now? Or a Apple IIc system -- or ??? hundreds of other vintage items that I've collected over the years.

I know VOGONS is no marketplace, but all of this price increasing is just fascinating to watch, but also such a shame that the hobby has been monetized so severely. A decade ago, what I had was probably worthless? Now, it's suddenly "valuable"?? C'mon...

Looks like I may be able to buy a new video card for Christmas for regular crazy high prices instead of I'm so rich (or appear to be) a $2,000 videocard is nothing prices. yay
May have to start treating video cards like I do cars. Buy a used 3yr old car.....but a 3yr old car doesn't really affect me usability wise. 🙁
I know one thing I'm taking extra care of my 1080ti, it's like gold or the way the world is going caps or water. 😁

Hah yeah maybe I'm just frustrated that I began too late in this beautiful business. I do however think that my own marked is inflated. I believe a lot of guys will sell their dream when the dream woman comes along. (She usually do not think a 486 case is very classy.)

I also see the thrift shops raising their prices a lot, do you see that too?

I think prices will keep going up for at least the next 10 years, then it will fall of a cliff. At the moment there is a limited supply and the demand is high. For the past 10 or so years more and more people have been reaching an age where they have become nostalgic about their childhood (myself included). Most of these people work (or have worked) in good paying jobs (usually in tech) so they have disposable income. So what you have is; 40 to 60 year olds (roughly) with money to spend. I saw a 386 motherboard going in an ebay auction the other day going for $255 USD! That's crazy. Who pays that? Someone with disposable income and an itch that needs to be scratched. Look at all the low-value "me-too" youtube channels popping up, cleaning old PC's and the like. Over the next decade or so, these 40 to 60 year olds will start dying, leaving behind their "treasures", adding to the limited supply. However, what is going to happen in the 2030's is that there will be less and less consumers left with an interest for the supply and prices will drop. A new generation will be nostalgic and looking on ebay for their childhood memories which aren't ours and our treasures have becomes nothing but the scrap that they were considered 20 years ago.

Joakim wrote on 2021-08-12, 20:45:

I believe a lot of guys will sell their dream when the dream woman comes along. (She usually do not think a 486 case is very classy.)

Then she's not the dream woman 😜
Although I found I got more into this after I was no longer single.
Maybe I lost the incentive as no longer needed to go out and find someone, Or maybe it's because that someone doesn't let me out anymore?
But your right, she most definitely does not like the 486 or any other thing in my "pile of old rubbish"

I agree with pan069
Demand will drop when this age bracket gets over their midlife crisis and will be replaced with whatever then next generation gets nostalgic for when they hit midlife

For me only availability changes and not prices. I'm generally not an impulse buyer and perfectly willing to wait months to a part on a price I'm willing to pay.

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-08-13, 11:50:

For me only availability changes and not prices. I'm generally not an impulse buyer and perfectly willing to wait months to a part on a price I'm willing to pay.

I impulse buy cheap stuff 🤣 I'm trying not to add to the pile much, but if there's something I could maybe use, yoink. Currently chanting to myself "I haven't got the room, I haven't got the room" because locally listed there's a job lot of 4 system units, 1 CRT and a bunch of random parts for $70, nothing real special though or I'd have rationalised it somehow 🤣 it's noughties junk. Probably two there that could still serve as surfing boxes with the right upgrades.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-08-13, 14:16:

I impulse buy cheap stuff 🤣 I'm trying not to add to the pile much, but if there's something I could maybe use, yoink. Currently chanting to myself "I haven't got the room, I haven't got the room"

pretty much this ^^

I'm not too picky on parts, I just scoop up whatever presents itself for a reasonable price... quantity over quality ^^
I just feel like supply is going to become more and more scarce over the years and prices may or may not be increasing, but I'd rather get what I can now...

I picked up some random computers and they are usually much cheaper than the parts they contain. Its a risk you take though. A month ago I picked up a system with a nice looking case but it was in bad shape, also the interior was a total mess. I think someone had fun and tried to make the computer blow up by connecting power into ide ports and such things. PSU was ok though (yeah I tested it first).