I used to see Amiga 2000's for $50-100 plus shipping all the time, but that was ages ago when I actively collected Amiga machine […]
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snorg wrote:Price inflation frustrates me too. I used to see listings on E-bay for Amiga 2000 and 3000 desktops for $200-$300 all the time, now they're going for $600 or more.
I have no doubt overpaid for some of my items (286, 386 and 486 specifically) although nothing like $200 for a single motherboard or $500 for a system. Compared to the days of being able to get a curbside 486 or pick up in a thrift shop for peanuts, $50 for a system board is pretty pricey. Am I also guilty of using my systems not nearly as much as I should? Yes, most of the time they are sitting in the closet. I think I'm going to try and narrow my collection down to 2 or 3 "must have" systems and put the others up for sale for something reasonable, so someone else can enjoy them.
Regarding my own personal Amiga quest, I realize I'm probably just going to have to settle for Amiga Forever running on a raspberry pi, along with the Amiga 500 I managed to get my hands on. And sure enough, no sooner did I manage to get one did I start to see listings for $400 and $500 for Amiga 500 as well. Some of that could be being driven by the coming Vampire add-on, which is suddenly making these older systems attractive once again.
I used to see Amiga 2000's for $50-100 plus shipping all the time, but that was ages ago when I actively collected Amiga machines. These days I have all the Amigas I need (A1200, A2000, A3000, A4000, A500, A1000) and I got them cheap. Don't feel the need to sell them even if I don't use them that often because replacing them would be too expensive.
This is a hobby to me and I don't pay "going ebay rates" for anything outside of commodity Chinese parts. I collected old 8bit/Amiga/Mac/PC gear when nobody else wanted any of it. You could find whole C64 systems on freecycle back then. I purchased 75+ mint boxed Amiga games for a few bucks a piece because literally nobody wanted them. Sure I have too many extra 386 and 486 motherboards but if I didn't snag them they would have been recycled a long time ago.
Prices are going up because new people are entering the hobby and outside of a bunch of old time hoarders there isn't that much of a supply anymore. People mention recyclers but they pretty much snagged all the 486 boards and CPUs that exist in their stream a long time ago. Things are over priced when they don't sell. If I can sell a Picasso any day of the week for $20M then it is not over priced. I do think some sellers are only selling to the extreme high end of the market and it takes a while to sell but they eventually do sell their stuff. The cheap gear that probably needs some work throws people off, but I go after them because they can usually be fixed cheap enough. Recapping or fixing blown tracks is a needed skill these days unless you want to pay somebody else to do it for you (which reflects ebay working condition pricing).
I don't think the upward pricing trend is going to keep people out of the hobby, but it will influence how big and expansive their collection will be. Some people will have to resort to bartering and trading instead of flat out buying which isn't a problem. Of course if some outfit starts slabbing 3dfx cards (for example) in tamper proof plastic with "ratings" on them and selling them as retirement funds then you know the hobby is screwed and you need to sell out and get out fast.