I wouldn't even bother with CRTs anymore, everyone sells even the crappy ones for like $500 or something stupid.

Even if interest is still high or increasing, I don't think there'll be a price explosion any time soon. They can only go so high in this economy where people are about to not be able to afford healthcare and basic needs.

What happens with the Voodoo 1 cards on eBay is usually a pretty good benchmark imo since they pop up more infrequently than the Voodoo 2 or 3. The Voodoo 1s listed at 200-300 have been there some time, but the ones 100-200 usually sell within a few days. So there's still a point that people aren't willing to go above.

Voodoo 1's didn't last for long before people wanted better than 640x480 resolution. The sweet spot for gaming was Voodoo 2 SLI (for 1024x768 but pricey) and Voodoo 3's which vary by model and interface.

Depends on how we measure a decrease. Prices are not dropping, but also aren't increasing that much, like it was during the rise of retrohardware Youtube reviews.

Unknown_K wrote on 2026-01-02, 06:25:

Voodoo 1's didn't last for long before people wanted better than 640x480 resolution. The sweet spot for gaming was Voodoo 2 SLI (for 1024x768 but pricey) and Voodoo 3's which vary by model and interface.

The Voodoo 2 also had been used on Power Mac platform.
Mac OS 8/9 had some games supporting Voodoo 2.

The Voodoo 1 was useful for Virtual PC 2/3, at least.
Though Voodoo 2 was probably a better choice for both.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2026-01-02, 07:00:

Depends on how we measure a decrease. Prices are not dropping, but also aren't increasing that much, like it was during the rise of retrohardware Youtube reviews.

I think its an ever decreasing pool of people and an ever decreasing pool of hardware, hence prices seem about the same and yet some of us have an impression of falling interest. It makes sense in a way, the slow aging of the 'community' with less and less new entrants over time, and the relative ease with which much of the past PC gaming can actually be done without special hardware - patches, hacks, gog, steam, dosbox etc

gerry wrote on 2026-01-02, 14:58:

I think its an ever decreasing pool of people and an ever decreasing pool of hardware, hence prices seem about the same and yet some of us have an impression of falling interest. It makes sense in a way, the slow aging of the 'community' with less and less new entrants over time, and the relative ease with which much of the past PC gaming can actually be done without special hardware - patches, hacks, gog, steam, dosbox etc

At the same time there is an increase in people outside of this hobby who have learned by now that in general old = trend = money. They find their parents old computer, check the highest listing on ebay and list them for that much. I don't know about you guys but what's certainly increasing for me is the number of local ads referencing ebay prices "these go for 300 on ebay, I sell them cheap for 250" for stuff nobody here would pay 50.

I understand why this is happening and I don't find it strange. Just wanted to comment that, in my eyes, the expected prices drop because of the shrinking community and declining interest is not really happening because of new "external" participants.

I think for every hard-core member here with stacks of vintage hardware there are probably 100 casual collectors who just buy a few things and enjoy them. Those people even if they buy at inflated eBay prices probably spend a fraction of what hard core members have paid over the years for their hoards (even if it was free for shipping).

konc wrote on 2026-01-02, 15:40:

I don't know about you guys but what's certainly increasing for me is the number of local ads referencing ebay prices "these go for 300 on ebay, I sell them cheap for 250" for stuff nobody here would pay 50.

'I know what I have' must be met with 'not my money'. It's the only way (as opposed to having an embarassing pants-pissing tantrum over Voodoo prices like I've seen on this forum).

Is there even a point in mentioning prices on a site that has an international user base with wildly varying supply?

The psychology behind nostalgia-based collecting is relevant here. People tend to feel most nostalgic for things they experienced in their teens, and this nostalgia tends to peak when people are in their 40s or 50s - the classic "mid-life crisis" period. People also tend to have more disposable income at that age, with stable jobs and older kids, and they seek out those nostalgia-filled aspects of their adolescence in order to navigate their middle-age years.

That's why people tend to say nostalgia peaks after 30 years (although I think it's a much broader period, perhaps strongest at 20-40 years). Consequently, nostalgia-based collecting also peaks then.

I've seen this pattern in other collectors' markets. More and more "casual" collectors start to appear from the 20-year period. However, these collectors tend to seek out only a subset of items, typically the "must-have" items that attract the most attention or are considered essential. In the case of retro hardware, anything 3dfx is an example of that. So, more and more casual collectors appear, and they drive up the prices of highly desirable items.

However, these casual collectors tend to lose interest more quickly, and they tend to just hold on to whatever they bought for life, so the supply of sought-after items will dwindle as prices rise. Eventually, an equilibrium will be reached where the supply is low and prices stay high. For example, I expect the prices of 3dfx cards will never go down in our lifetimes, but they will eventually flatten out.

This rise in nostalgia-based collecting only affects certain items, however. More obscure stuff or stuff considered undesirable for whatever reason among the more casual crowd will remain in low demand, and will mostly stay among the more hardcore collectors.

All I can say is that my interest has only increased over the last few years.

@jh80 That makes sense, sounds reasonable.

On other hand, I'm looking at it rather relaxed..
Even if the last GForce 5200 or Voodoo 1 is scrapped, there's still enough information available for a replica or substitute.
It may not be the original, but have a close enough look&feel and functionality.

That's why I'm quite relaxed here.:
There will always be options to build a DOS or Windows 98 PC in the future.
We have enough photos, videos and schematics about a given era.

Kids of any age from the future will have the option to play our games, listen to our music and to remember us.

I mean, let's look back for comparison. The S/NES, Genesis and C64 are still with us.
The games had been enjoyed via emulation, via modern clone consoles and so on.

Way back in the 90s, young kids played 1970s era Atari 2600 games on DOS emulators, too!
In the 2000s, kids played old games on Wii and DS Virtual Console.
Games of their parent's childhood, basically.

So there's no need for worrying, I think.
Beloved games, comics and music won't be forgotten so easily.
They're also not bound to a specific generation only.

There will always be people who enjoy the classics, even if they weren't around when they were new.
I mean, I myself do feel nostalgic for things I haven't experienced when it came to be.
Such as TOS, which is from the 1960s. I grew up with the re-runs only.
Edit: I also feel nostalgic for early radio technology from the 1920s.

Likewise, about every true gamer has heard of Super Mario Bros. on NES or of the Gameboy version of Tetris.
Most PC gamers had at least once heard of Doom, as well.

Edit: I forgot to mention. I'm looking at it from the point of view of a tinkerer or a librarian, maybe.
My retro collection isn't about about money, worth, possession.
It's rather about building a little personal library of things that I find interesting.
So it's understable that a true collector has other priorities.
A stamp collector or comic collector cares about authenticity a lot, for example.
A re-print or an unlicensed copy that feels and looks same won't do it to them.

Just read a Xiaohongshu / RedNote post yesterday: a young woman was about to move her residence so she asked netizens whether to discard her "old and seldom used trashy desktop computer" (she's been using her laptop with RTX 4060 almost exclusively): i7-8700 + 16GB RAM + GTX 1070 8GB + 128GB SSD. The first two parameters were exactly the same as my current working rig, and while I have a larger SSD (256GB), my GPU is much weaker (GTX 1650 Super 4GB).

Most people who are not tech savvy simply don't give old technologies a sh*t: they simply buy the most expensive item they could afford as a replacement should the current item becomes unsatisfactory. If the item gets lucky it gets traded-in or sold as used; most of them, however, would be send to the nearest e-waste. A few among the crowd might be interested in their remaining monetary values (so they could resell them to retro lovers), not technological importances.

This attitude even applies to new products that are actually inferior: earlier this afternoon I saw a young couple in their twenties shopping "retro-styled" compact cameras. The girl picked a Kodak Pixpro C1 with black body and silver top; the boy payed swiftly with the price of NT$3990 (US$127.18) and the girl went ecstatic. I, witnessing the entirety, just came back from a flea market and with a boxed and tested Fujifilm FinePix S9500 in my hand, and an unboxed, untested Samsung EX1 (turned out to be fully functional) in my backpack, with the prices of NT$2000 and 1000, respectively, in excellent conditions. Both were flagship cameras when they were released 20 and 15 years ago; their image qualities are still much superior than trashy retro wannabes like Kodak Pixpro C1 -- more expensive than the two combined! The couple were clearly in their twenties (many primary and secondary schools in East Asia don't allow students carrying smartphones to schools, but "pure" cameras are allowed, creating a niched market for low-end compact cameras designed for teenagers) so I couldn't understand why would she want a "camera" inferior than the front selfie camera of her smartphone.

I think you are probably spot on @jh80. Prices will probably flatten out but at some point only the most sought after hardware will have any economical value at all in 30-40 years except for scrap metal contents. :-p

By the way, I was at pricetracking the other day, while there was the covid bump and then dump in 2022, then everything flatlined, the last few months seem to show a slight uptrend on retrogame stuff in general, getting back on the same upward slope as before the discontinuity of lockdown hobbies.

Most people are stupid, more news at 11.

One thing for sure , we live in a time unprecedented in history. Barring a terrible disaster we will really be the first generation in history where the common man will be remembered more clearly than even the rulers of previous ages. History was written by the few and most people are forgotten, but as the first generation in history to so fully document itself through the internet we will live on in a way no common man has ever done before.

They will still get things wrong about us but our thoughts will live on for reflection.

I have a couple business/investment ideas along these lines. If you want to invest hit me up.

Shagittarius wrote on 2026-03-06, 18:51:

One thing for sure , we live in a time unprecedented in history. Barring a terrible disaster we will really be the first generation in history where the common man will be remembered more clearly than even the rulers of previous ages. History was written by the few and most people are forgotten, but as the first generation in history to so fully document itself through the internet we will live on in a way no common man has ever done before.

Without either a filter (as discussed in the famous monologue at the end of Metal Gear Solid 2) or our modern Library of Alexandria burning down forcing us to start anew, we face a crushing weight of inherited information...

As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.

— Denis Diderot, "Encyclopédie" (1755)

How is it that I read this entire thread and the only thing that stuck in my mind was the McDLT?