VOGONS


Retro Hardware Collecting rants

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Reply 540 of 934, by cyclone3d

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Prices of old hardware can be all over the place. From what I have seen is that some people who have stuff to sell go and look at the eBay BIN prices for items that have been there forever and never sell. They then base their price off of those listings

Then you have people who look at the sold listings and base their asking prices off of those. When people see those "cheaper" sales pop up compared to the other stupidly high priced listings, they jump on the lower priced listings right away.

Then you have the sellers who look at both the current BIN prices and the sold prices and price the items somewhere in-between so prices tend to go up even for stuff that is pretty common.

If people are willing to pay the prices that are being asked, then that is what sets the prices.... sellers are generally not going to list some rare or sought after piece of hardware for almost nothing unless they don't know what they have and/or don't do price research beforehand.

I've gotten quite a few pieces for cheap because of that.

You've also got the dynamic of some pieces being harder to get depending on your geographical region. So that also lends to prices varying wildly.

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Reply 541 of 934, by imi

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konc wrote on 2020-07-27, 17:51:

On this subject, I really believe a time will come were 60 years old folks won't hunt for XT-286-386-486s any more, our modern equivalent won't give a damn about them and collections will be liquefied for peanuts. I mean I don't see ISA sound of VGA cards going for that much in 10-20 years, once the generation that grew up with DOS is no more active in this hobby/business or has acquired everything desired for the rest of their life. Yes, there will be that rare item going for the price of a small used car, but I honestly don't think some basic ISA will still get sold for 50-100e/$. Don't get me wrong, I hope they will 😀 I just don't think so.

^I think this will very much be true.

we're pretty much peak nostalgia for that era of computers right now imho

Reply 542 of 934, by devius

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Or this could go the way of old classic cars that keep increasing in value even though nostalgia is in no way associated with them most of the time.

The only way to know is to be there and see it happen. Let's see how things are 10 years from now, but I doubt prices will decrease.

Reply 543 of 934, by Big Pink

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konc wrote on 2020-07-27, 17:51:

On this subject, I really believe a time will come were 60 years old folks won't hunt for XT-286-386-486s any more, our modern equivalent won't give a damn about them and collections will be liquefied for peanuts. I mean I don't see ISA sound of VGA cards going for that much in 10-20 years, once the generation that grew up with DOS is no more active in this hobby/business or has acquired everything desired for the rest of their life. Yes, there will be that rare item going for the price of a small used car, but I honestly don't think some basic ISA will still get sold for 50-100e/$. Don't get me wrong, I hope they will 😀 I just don't think so.

ISA and DOS surviving beyond the 80s was the freak occurrence which gave rise to everything this hobby and this forum is about. Had ISA been succeeded sooner, had Windows 3.0 not put DOS on lifesupport for another decade; we might have had very very old games on new systems without much trouble. Clock-speed sensitivity, direct hardware access, etc ... other than XP compatability issues, I just don't see the same conditions existing for post-Millennium stuff. Basically, the platform matured.

I thought IBM was born with the world

Reply 544 of 934, by EvieSigma

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devius wrote on 2020-07-27, 20:46:

Or this could go the way of old classic cars that keep increasing in value even though nostalgia is in no way associated with them most of the time.

The only way to know is to be there and see it happen. Let's see how things are 10 years from now, but I doubt prices will decrease.

As someone who follows classic cars and their values, the values of a lot of cars have definitely dropped. However, that "drop" is only from the frankly ludicrous six figure range back down to five figures, due to there just being less and less of the kind of people in the world who would pay $250k for an Oldsmobile 442.

Reply 545 of 934, by SodaSuccubus

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As a daily eBay wanderer, atleast on the Ebay.ca side, I see hot listings for 486/Pentium machines and motherboard bundles go up in views all the time, and usually sell out pretty fast.

Meanwhile listings for other motherboard/system combos like early 386/ 286/ anything before just sit. Litterly. Just sit for days unless it's a really good sale or amazing parts.

I foresee some of the more trendy retro builds getting expensive. But I'm pretty sure some others will forever just sit as they are.

Reply 546 of 934, by Horun

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imi wrote on 2020-07-27, 19:34:
konc wrote on 2020-07-27, 17:51:

On this subject, I really believe a time will come were 60 years old folks won't hunt for XT-286-386-486s any more, our modern equivalent won't give a damn about them and collections will be liquefied for peanuts. I mean I don't see ISA sound of VGA cards going for that much in 10-20 years, once the generation that grew up with DOS is no more active in this hobby/business or has acquired everything desired for the rest of their life. Yes, there will be that rare item going for the price of a small used car, but I honestly don't think some basic ISA will still get sold for 50-100e/$. Don't get me wrong, I hope they will 😀 I just don't think so.

^I think this will very much be true.

we're pretty much peak nostalgia for that era of computers right now imho

Good points ! The age thing may come into play very heavy in next decade or two as those of us that either worked with old hardware get too old OR those that grew up with it as a kid loose interest or also just get too old. The rare few children of us that may keep and interest in it will be the ones to carry it on... but highly doubt many of their kids (our grandkids) will have any interest other than selling off stuff for the $$$ if they can get their hands on it. Just a 61 year olds observation as I watch the kids not have much interest, one of my nephews was getting into old computers for a few years but now the new electronics is where is head is 🙁

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Reply 547 of 934, by dr_st

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Horun wrote on 2020-07-27, 22:52:

Good points ! The age thing may come into play very heavy in next decade or two as those of us that either worked with old hardware get too old OR those that grew up with it as a kid loose interest or also just get too old. The rare few children of us that may keep and interest in it will be the ones to carry it on... but highly doubt many of their kids (our grandkids) will have any interest other than selling off stuff for the $$$ if they can get their hands on it. Just a 61 year olds observation as I watch the kids not have much interest, one of my nephews was getting into old computers for a few years but now the new electronics is where is head is 🙁

I also think this is true. The thing is that for the vast majority of folks - electronics are not the goal in itself, but a means of achieving something - listening to music, watching films, playing games, running business applications. Old games/videos/movies as works of art have intrinsic value to many. Electronics - only to few.

Take for example old games, which is what VOGONS is founded on. As emulation is getting better and better, almost every DOS game now can be played via DOSBox, in some cases better than it ever did on actual hardware, and with far less hassle. My kids love some of those old games and I imagine they may want to keep on playing them for quite some time, but I don't see them deciding to invest in actual real hardware to do so, when it can be done via emulation on their main PC.

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Reply 548 of 934, by hwh

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SodaSuccubus wrote on 2020-07-27, 21:26:

As a daily eBay wanderer, atleast on the Ebay.ca side, I see hot listings for 486/Pentium machines and motherboard bundles go up in views all the time, and usually sell out pretty fast.

Meanwhile listings for other motherboard/system combos like early 386/ 286/ anything before just sit. Litterly. Just sit for days unless it's a really good sale or amazing parts.

I foresee some of the more trendy retro builds getting expensive. But I'm pretty sure some others will forever just sit as they are.

What can you do with those systems, though? The market seems to understand the accessibility and utility of a Pentium, a toy. A 286, I've got one in storage, and it's in storage because it's the last computer related thing I wanted to take out. This massive rusty doorstop that on a good day can be a word processor.

Now granted, it's in my collection, but I didn't buy it either, salvaged.

Reply 549 of 934, by mpe

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Found a “grade B - cannot figure how to power up so untested“ Mac II on eBay 😀
Bargain at £299 + shipping

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Reply 552 of 934, by cyclone3d

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Was there at least 2 inches of bubble-wrap on all sides of the case? Show us pics of the box and packaging material.

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Reply 553 of 934, by EvieSigma

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Packing was quite good, computer was wrapped in at least 2 inches of bubble wrap with a block of foam at the bottom of the box and then another at the top, with some padding around the sides as well. These are the seller's photos he sent me before shipping, and they match what arrived today.

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Reply 554 of 934, by Repo Man11

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I once rebuilt a friend's computer, and bought a new case for them. When I shipped it, I reused the box the case came in, thinking it would be safe. My friend isn't too tech savvy, and when he got it, he was having some trouble getting the monitor connected. A couple of years later I visited and saw that he had it connected to the onboard video, rather than the video card I had included so the kids could play games. I then connected it to the output of the video card, which had no display? I opened it up, and saw that it had been dropped so hard that the bottom of the case was bent, and the retainer for the PCIe slot holding the video card had broken. I firmly inserted the card, which then worked (at least, until the next time it was moved). Heavy sigh

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Reply 555 of 934, by Unknown_K

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Powermac 9500's are very brittle these days(same with 7500 and 8500 and Quadra 800/840av). The 9500 I own will drop bits if you look at it funny.

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Reply 556 of 934, by Miphee

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This still counts as poor packaging, the box is way too small and not enough bubble wrap.
I don't get people. A huge roll of bubble wrap is like $15 and using 10-20-30 layers of that prevents nearly every damage.
PC in the picture has maybe 2 layers and look at the size of that box, way too small.
Sellers usually take the smallest box they can fit the item in and call it careful packaging because it has a little padding on the sides.
I suggest you make a little experiment.
Take a computer case you don't care about and wrap it up with 10 layers of bubble wrap then kick the shit out of it.
If the case is damaged, add 10 more layers and do it again and again until you are satisfied that the case is safe.
Tell it to your next seller and pay him extra to correctly pack the item up. If he refuses or neglects it, don't buy from him.

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Reply 557 of 934, by Warlord

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Most the old stuff isn't that good. Take Creative for example, they made lots of models and many parts, but awe64 gold is the only one people really want, becasue its the only one that is really good.

Graphics cards, Motherboards all follow the same logic. This is the reason I do not collect them. If there is something that I consider good and its affordable I buy it but I just don't collect old stuff just becasue its old. Thats mostly why I don't have alot of XT and 286 stuff laying around. I have a 386/486 VLB and I quit after that.

The sentiment that all this old stuff in 60 years is worthless is true only in the sense that something like a ensoniq PCI will be even more worthless than it is now. But a TI 4600 might still hold value.

Reply 558 of 934, by Unknown_K

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Miphee wrote on 2020-08-16, 05:18:
This still counts as poor packaging, the box is way too small and not enough bubble wrap. I don't get people. A huge roll of bub […]
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This still counts as poor packaging, the box is way too small and not enough bubble wrap.
I don't get people. A huge roll of bubble wrap is like $15 and using 10-20-30 layers of that prevents nearly every damage.
PC in the picture has maybe 2 layers and look at the size of that box, way too small.
Sellers usually take the smallest box they can fit the item in and call it careful packaging because it has a little padding on the sides.
I suggest you make a little experiment.
Take a computer case you don't care about and wrap it up with 10 layers of bubble wrap then kick the shit out of it.
If the case is damaged, add 10 more layers and do it again and again until you are satisfied that the case is safe.
Tell it to your next seller and pay him extra to correctly pack the item up. If he refuses or neglects it, don't buy from him.

Bubblewrap is the not the best packing material, foam is better. Peanuts are the worst.

Unless you owned a 9500 you have no idea how brittle that plastic is these days. I have snapped a power on button just by lightly pressing it.

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Reply 559 of 934, by dr_st

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Warlord wrote on 2020-08-16, 05:47:

Most the old stuff isn't that good. Take Creative for example, they made lots of models and many parts, but awe64 gold is the only one people really want, becasue its the only one that is really good.

AWE64 series is only very good for people who are willing to overlook the non-OPL3 FM implementation. In any case, AWE64 Gold's advantages over AWE64 Value are quite slim in normal use, for most purposes that do not require 4MB of RAM for soundfonts - nonexistent. The Gold still commands higher price, cause it's the top of the line, but as available quantities diminish, the Value is also going up in, well, value.

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