I can vouch for that seller. I got my Acer 486 from him. Picked it up from his home in Vic Park 😀

Yes he's a good bloke, I've bought a couple of PC's from him and he gets some good stuff. That 486 going for 600 bucks is amazing - he's had better stuff go for far less recently.

I have enough spares to make a simular machine; maybe it would be worth my while to whip one up and try my luck!

I have been watching that auction too. I have my doubts about it's legitimacy. That amount is too insane.

"Insane"? When I read the thread's title, I thought it is about something priced at thousands of bucks or such. Granted, the system he sells is not cheap either, but it looks like its components are hand-picked for gaming. For example, it has Tseng Labs ET4000, which was the best DOS video card of its era. It also has Creative Sound Blaster instead of some generic ISA sound card. Considering many of us here are willing to shell out US $100 or so for a sound card or video card , I don't think the system is insanely expensive. Expensive, yes. But not insanely.

I agree with Kreshna. It is a good system with a very nice ASUS motherboard, a proper SB16 with no hanging note bug and with the ET4000. This machine isn't some random OEM system. DOS VGA games should fly on this machine!

Did the buyer pay too much? Yes, but it isn't completely insane.

Btw it makes me want to put my 486 system up for sale which has even better parts!

I must disagree. That price is nuts.

This guy has been selling a ton of similar machines. 286, 386, 486, Pentiums... Not once have I seen one of his machines sell for that much.

Two buyers must have really wanted it for whatever reason...

Looks like a clean system. How did he get away will selling a bootleg DOS 6.22 boot disk on ebay?

I hope 486 prices go higher, I have a dozen boards and a few systems to ditch (too many machines) soon.

If it's a regular auction then you can't really blame the seller for the high price, blame the bidders for driving it up. If the seller has a ridiculously high BIN or reserve on items that aren't worth that price, then you can kind of hang the blame on the seller but not really because someone was still willing to pay the price even if it was ridiculous.

very rare Intel PODP5V120 SU080 V1.0 skt4 Overdrive NOS 120MHz upgrade CPU

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/very-rare-I ... 675.l2557
$455??????? He also sold a socket 4 overdrive 133mhz for $102, is the 120 part rarer? Must be serious cpu collectors out their.

Wow, that's awesome!

Inspired by the price of that 486 in your original post, I'm putting together a 486 from spare parts and will try my luck shortly. The same guy is selling a very similar machine here:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/141033031333?ssPag … 984.m1423.l2649

So I'll wait until that one's sold. I'm interested to see what he gets for this one! It's a goldrush people!

I might try my luck too as the last 486 I picked up the onboard video is faulty, I reckon a good spiel is important as it captivates the imagination or nostalga.,

The market for complete 486s is hard to guage and this other one should give us an indication of what they're really worth, I dont think id sell mine for less than $100 as I can easily see it selling for alot more in the future, I reckon this seller is crazy starting off with $5 auctions, if my last 486 sold for $615 I'd slap $500 or make an offer and wait, you dont often see complete 486s for sale on Australian ebay although they pop up from time to time,

Agreed, a good spiel and lots of pics go a long way, I'll have a crack at both.

I've been watching that blokes actions for a couple of years and he wins some, loses some. The 486 I bought off him 2 years ago - same specs as that $600 dollar one - I got for ~20 bucks. I can't imagine the market has increased that much in 2 years.

I don't want mine to go for less than $100 either but in my experience (when selling), a low starting price gets people interested. I've had stuff listed with a $50 starting bid that sits there for weeks, and then I re-list it with a $10 starting bid and a $50 BIN and someone bought (BIN) within hours. People like to think they're getting a bargain I suppose.

I'm thinking of a $70 opening bid and a $350 BIN price, but I'll wait to see what the one currently listed goes for first.

PC gaming in general has been growing lately. I might guess because of that Niches have been growing too, retro parts are going up in price. I'm glad my boss held on to those trays of old Processors at work. at the very least they will be worth gold scrap if not for their value as CPUs.

That capnhook bloke has been selling old pcs for years, I'd say he has a decent amount of people watching him by now.

Or maybe shill bidding, you never know with ebay.

Not sure if this ones already been mentioned on the forum

IBM ThinkPad 701C - AMD 5x86 DX5 133Mhz / Pentium 75MHz (701CS Butterfly)

625 Euro's with 20 bids so far. Wow.

I've gotta ask.........Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-ThinkPad-701C-AMD … =item19e2fbf0e7

701c's in working condition are hard to come by. They originally came with a DX2/50 or 75 and there was an aftermarket board with the 133 chip on it so that unit is upgraded.

I think when the item is cheap, they dont care @ all. Because they think the computer isnt worth it at all.. But actually they just want to have it for which price they want to spent.
Maybe those people born in the years later then when those systems where produced.. And never haved played with these kind old vintage computers, i think you can compare it like amiga computers and so on.. So you need to know the actually age of those buyers.
and maybe they get there intrest in these computers, and just want to have it for each price they can.. So if you have 3 or 4 bidders on the item and someone wants it really bad, yes then the bid prices could actually going very high you never thought off.. But other people that maybe had that kind computer are much older, and maybe not intrested anymore in this kind of computer.. Most think these computer are worth-less because they are to slow for the things we do to day..

If you want to talk about insane, though this isn't actually a computer part, I about fell out of my chair and couldn't move for 15 minutes when I saw THIS.

Now, it was an auction, so the real culprits (OK, I call them idiots,) were the bidders. I checked the bidding history, and the starting price was high, but still. I also saw a large number of "retracted" or "cancelled" bids. That is sometimes a sign that the seller is bid hiking because there seems to be a bit of interest (though it is difficult to prove.) Again, Caveat Emptor, as the saying goes (not sure if I'm spelling that right.) What really gave me the freezup, is that it is in awful condition...

One thing is, I think I remember seeing a good one (with manual, box, everything,) in the old game shop here. It was years ago, but I have vague memories about snorting at a $400 price tag. Monday morning I'm going to have to go look. Don't think I'll try to buy then sell it, though it is extremely tempting if the tag is the same. Knowing my luck, though, they already saw the auction and have hiked the price up. Wonder what they're asking now? Being in such good condition, would they be asking $400,000 instead of $400???