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Prices are out of hand

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Reply 40 of 62, by BaronSFel001

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I got my LAPC-I about 14 years ago for $200; seeing what they go for now I admit I've been tempted to replace it with one of the Munt-based modules and turn the real deal into cash.

System 20: PIII 600, LAPC-I, GUS PnP, S220, Voodoo3, SQ2500, R200, 3.0-Me
System 21: G2030 3.0, X-fi Fatal1ty, GTX 560, XP-Vista
Retro gaming (among other subjects): https://baronsfel001.wixsite.com/my-site

Reply 41 of 62, by douglar

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Just because people are asking high prices on Ebay doesn't mean things are selling at high prices. A lot of those high priced items sit out there for years.

Reply 42 of 62, by Unknown_K

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The prices for stuff that actually sells are higher every year.

Collector of old computers, hardware, and software

Reply 43 of 62, by sunkindly

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Which do you guys think should factor more into the price, rarity or condition?

I've come across a lot of $100+ cards that have the "PULLED FROM WORKING SYSTEM" "EXCELLENT CONDITION" but then you zoom in and see crusty caps, scorch marks, and whatnot.

Is it ever worth to pay that much for a rare card even if you're confident in your repair skills? Or should it be generally accepted that something for parts or as is should be considerably lower?

SUN85-87: NEC PC-8801mkIIMR
SUN88-92: Northgate Elegance | 386DX-25 | Orchid Fahrenheit 1280
SUN94-96: BEK-P407 | Cyrix 5x86 120MHz | Tseng Labs ET6000
SUN98-01: ABIT BF6 | Pentium III 1.1GHz | 3dfx Voodoo3 3000

Reply 44 of 62, by kixs

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Unknown_K wrote on 2025-10-17, 15:00:

The prices for stuff that actually sells are higher every year.

Some are some aren't.

I see pretty much the same prices for AWE32 and AWE64 / Gold cards for years now. If you account for inflation the prices are even lower.

The same goes for 486 boards and AT cases. Only a few items demand higher prices.

Visit my AmiBay items for sale (updated: 2025-08-01). I also take requests 😉
https://www.amibay.com/members/kixs.977/#sales-threads

Reply 45 of 62, by douglar

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The supply on a lot of these things is pretty low too. At one point I wanted to get a group of different VLB IDE controllers. I bought up the low priced ones. I feel like my buying spree skewed the Ebay price structure for like a 18 months. Seemed like when new sellers arrived after that, they looked at the cheapest prices and started there. Prices stayed high for a while, not a lot sold, and now we are back to seeing quality cards available for less than $25 again. So my point is that it doesn't take a lot of collectors to move the market.

Reply 46 of 62, by Big Pink

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MikeSG wrote on 2025-10-17, 11:51:

The only Mach64 ISA cards on eBay are listed under "1021935710" or "109-19301-10" and are $1000-1400 AUD. One is an auction right now.

Listing by part numbers are usually recyclers targetting businesses with deep pockets who are running ancient ISA-based hardware and need a replacement yesterday. Doesn't matter how long you watch the listing, they won't reduce the price because the long tail means someone sometime way down the line will buy it at list and it's only appreciating in value as time passes.

I thought IBM was born with the world

Reply 47 of 62, by Ozzuneoj

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MikeSG wrote on 2025-10-15, 16:04:
Rare ISA video cards are sky high as well. […]
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Rare ISA video cards are sky high as well.

ATI Mach 64 - $1000
ET 4000 W32i - $1000
CL GD5434 - $500

Some VLB video cards are up to $500 too.

Where are you getting these prices? There is nothing actually selling for those prices (in USD), and I don't even see anything listed for anywhere close to those prices other than some crazy multi-display, multi-chip commercial ET4000 W32i cards... and they aren't selling.

To be honest, I watch this stuff very closely and I have seen prices and demand for a lot of items drop considerably in the past year. To be clear, this isn't across the board for everything, but for lots of things it definitely has. Someone just got a CT-1320C with original CMS chips for $80 at auction and it only had two bids. A couple years ago that would have been a $250+ sale because they are so rare now. Sound Blaster Pro CT-1330, Goldfinch cards, and others seem to be sitting on ebay for way longer and selling for way less than they would have a few years ago as well. 3dfx cards are still high, with the rarest ones often selling for crazy prices still, but the "moderately useful, but somewhat less common" stuff like PCI Voodoo3 cards aren't being gobbled up for the prices they were last year either, so demand has at least dropped a little in the US.

Super Socket 7 boards went completely bananas for a while, peaking maybe 3-4 years ago for like $300+ minimum. I have since found some, and now and it seems hit or miss whether they'd sell for even $150. Some sell higher, but not always.

Yes, the prices are waaay higher than they were 10 years ago, but demand (and some prices) for retro things have absolutely dropped in the past year or two. Most likely it's because these are all unnecessary "toys" and "luxury items" for the most part, and when there is economic uncertainty demand for those types of things goes down. People are actually thinking about where their money goes because everything is more expensive. Also, the pandemic made people do crazy things and invest in hobbies... not to mention that people were handed wads of cash to do whatever with.

That said, one sad thing is somewhat counteracting the drop in demand... Supply is getting completely trashed because the gold prices are so high and more stuff is being scrapped for higher prices. I have wanted to buy some processors lately but any scrap lots with old CPUs or RAM are just stupidly expensive. In fact, I accumulated some scrap lots (junk! broken things, modems, etc...)over the past year of buying old parts, and I resold the scrap for easily 50% more than what I paid for it last year, and that's after pulling out the interesting parts I wanted.

People are hoarding gold, and, overall, people are less interested in expensive old computer parts. People with deep pockets who are really into retro PCs are still going to buy what they want of course.

Oh, also, retro PC youtubers and such were making a big splash several years ago, which is part of why demand skyrocketed. Now that they've covered the vast majority of the actually interesting and attainable hardware, building a SS7 system with a Voodoo 3 and a AWE64 Gold is no longer a thing that tons and tons of people are just learning about and searching for. Yes, demand is still fairly high, but it isn't like it was a few years back.

EDIT: Almost forgot... the tariff situation has complicated things quite a bit as well. I used to buy things from overseas (or even from Canada) somewhat frequently, but I don't even dare do it at this point because I have no idea if it will end up costing 10% more or 250% more by the time it hits customs and then makes it's way to me.

Last edited by Ozzuneoj on 2025-10-18, 02:35. Edited 1 time in total.

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 48 of 62, by sunkindly

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Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-10-17, 19:16:

Someone just got a CT-1320C with original CMS chips for $80 at auction and it only had two bids.

Outing myself just because it’s funny it was referenced here but I won that one, I was actually quite surprised. It’s gonna go into my 386 as I was really needing something period appropriate, so it’ll be well taken care of!

But yes, I’ve been avoiding a lot from Japan nowadays. There’s still decent deals through Buyee / Yahoo Auctions but I don’t wanna take the risk after I hear UPS has been destroying a lot of packages.

SUN85-87: NEC PC-8801mkIIMR
SUN88-92: Northgate Elegance | 386DX-25 | Orchid Fahrenheit 1280
SUN94-96: BEK-P407 | Cyrix 5x86 120MHz | Tseng Labs ET6000
SUN98-01: ABIT BF6 | Pentium III 1.1GHz | 3dfx Voodoo3 3000

Reply 49 of 62, by kixs

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sunkindly wrote on 2025-10-17, 19:34:
Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-10-17, 19:16:

Someone just got a CT-1320C with original CMS chips for $80 at auction and it only had two bids.

Outing myself just because it’s funny it was referenced here but I won that one, I was actually quite surprised. It’s gonna go into my 386 as I was really needing something period appropriate, so it’ll be well taken care of!

But yes, I’ve been avoiding a lot from Japan nowadays. There’s still decent deals through Buyee / Yahoo Auctions but I don’t wanna take the risk after I hear UPS has been destroying a lot of packages.

That's why I don't do auctions as a seller. The auction might get expensive if there are two people going at it. But if there is only one really interested, the price will be lower then usual. Which is great for the buyer. So it depends on your side in transaction.

Visit my AmiBay items for sale (updated: 2025-08-01). I also take requests 😉
https://www.amibay.com/members/kixs.977/#sales-threads

Reply 50 of 62, by CharlieFoxtrot

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Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-10-17, 19:16:
Where are you getting these prices? There is nothing actually selling for those prices (in USD), and I don't even see anything l […]
Show full quote
MikeSG wrote on 2025-10-15, 16:04:
Rare ISA video cards are sky high as well. […]
Show full quote

Rare ISA video cards are sky high as well.

ATI Mach 64 - $1000
ET 4000 W32i - $1000
CL GD5434 - $500

Some VLB video cards are up to $500 too.

Where are you getting these prices? There is nothing actually selling for those prices (in USD), and I don't even see anything listed for anywhere close to those prices other than some crazy multi-display, multi-chip commercial ET4000 W32i cards... and they aren't selling.

To be honest, I watch this stuff very closely and I have seen prices and demand for a lot of items drop considerably in the past year. To be clear, this isn't across the board for everything, but for lots of things it definitely has. Someone just got a CT-1320C with original CMS chips for $80 at auction and it only had two bids. A couple years ago that would have been a $250+ sale because they are so rare now. Sound Blaster Pro CT-1330, Goldfinch cards, and others seem to be sitting on ebay for way longer and selling for way less than they would have a few years ago as well. 3dfx cards are still high, with the rarest ones often selling for crazy prices still, but the "moderately useful, but somewhat less common" stuff like PCI Voodoo3 cards aren't being gobbled up for the prices they were last year either, so demand has at least dropped a little in the US.

Super Socket 7 boards went completely bananas for a while, peaking maybe 3-4 years ago for like $300+ minimum. I have since found some, and now and it seems hit or miss whether they'd sell for even $150. Some sell higher, but not always.

Yes, the prices are waaay higher than they were 10 years ago, but demand (and some prices) for retro things have absolutely dropped in the past year or two. Most likely it's because these are all unnecessary "toys" and "luxury items" for the most part, and when there is economic uncertainty demand for those types of things goes down. People are actually thinking about where their money goes because everything is more expensive. Also, the pandemic made people do crazy things and invest in hobbies... not to mention that people were handed wads of cash to do whatever with.

That said, one sad thing is kind counteracting the drop in demand... Supply is getting completely trashed because the gold prices are so high and more stuff is being scrapped for higher prices. I have wanted to buy some processors lately but any scrap lots with old CPUs or RAM are just stupidly expensive. In fact, I accumulated some scrap lots (junk! broken things, modems, etc...)over the past year of buying old parts, and I resold the scrap for easily 50% more than what I paid for it last year, and that's after pulling out the interesting parts I wanted.

People are hoarding gold, and, overall, people are less interested in expensive old computer parts. People with deep pockets who are really into retro PCs are still going to buy what they want of course.

Oh, also, retro PC youtubers and such were making a big splash several years ago, which is part of why demand skyrocketed. Now that they've covered the vast majority of the actually interesting and attainable hardware, building a SS7 system with a Voodoo 3 and a AWE64 Gold is no longer a thing that tons and tons of people are just learning about and searching for. Yes, demand is still fairly high, but it isn't like it was a few years back.

EDIT: Almost forgot... the tariff situation has complicated things quite a bit as well. I used to buy things from overseas (or even from Canada) somewhat frequently, but I don't even dare do it at this point because I have no idea if it will end up costing 10% more or 250% more by the time it hits customs and then makes it's way to me.

I also feel that things peaked two-three years ago. Pandemic, resulted boredom and money that wasn’t consumed to vacations and trips started to flow to other things and retro gaming and computing was definitely one of those. New hobbyists increased demand and speculation which again led to prices that were completely bonkers and stuff just flew from market places. Market overall has definitely cooled down since then.

Something that also probably plays a part are new gear that is getting released, which often can subsitute rare and sought out hardware. For many it may be difficult to justify hundreds of beans for authentic Gravis sound card when you can get PicoGUS for a fraction of a price while it can also provide other features.

Reply 51 of 62, by picmaster

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I think that the younger part of the general population is nowadays less interested in retro hardware, so it's not this (you have pc/console gaming, AI, youtube, why waste your life with your grandpa's toys?!?).

As others already said, the old hardware fails victim to both greedy humans and time, and only a few people have skills and resources to repair stuff and keep it alive for a while. So my personal ranking is like this:
1. Scalpers / Scrapers (can't decide which ones are more harmful).
2. Actual aging of hardware / getting defective, and also people trashing fully working stuff.
3. New retro/dos/gaming hobbyists (but would love to see more of them around).

Regarding #1 - can't explain the shitty feeling when I see a listing photo of several buckets of CPUs splashed on the floor, getting ready for the extraction... Maybe I'll have to rate Scrapers as #1, as Scalpers at least allow someone to enjoy the retro toy (after first selling his kidneys of course).

Reply 52 of 62, by ElectroSoldier

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The prices are showing people are getting desperate to earn as much as possible from what they have.
Its actually a sign of a bad economy, especially when you consider what else is going on around us.

It will get to a point where people will take what ever they can get for it, and that will be a return to their normal prices.

Reply 53 of 62, by Living

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picmaster wrote on 2025-10-17, 21:50:
I think that the younger part of the general population is nowadays less interested in retro hardware, so it's not this (you hav […]
Show full quote

I think that the younger part of the general population is nowadays less interested in retro hardware, so it's not this (you have pc/console gaming, AI, youtube, why waste your life with your grandpa's toys?!?).

As others already said, the old hardware fails victim to both greedy humans and time, and only a few people have skills and resources to repair stuff and keep it alive for a while. So my personal ranking is like this:
1. Scalpers / Scrapers (can't decide which ones are more harmful).
2. Actual aging of hardware / getting defective, and also people trashing fully working stuff.
3. New retro/dos/gaming hobbyists (but would love to see more of them around).

Regarding #1 - can't explain the shitty feeling when I see a listing photo of several buckets of CPUs splashed on the floor, getting ready for the extraction... Maybe I'll have to rate Scrapers as #1, as Scalpers at least allow someone to enjoy the retro toy (after first selling his kidneys of course).

thats why i decided to part ways with most of my retro hardware. Age is the first concern, these things wont be last forever

and im seeing all the time, young people (30 and below) dont even care about late 90s hardware, we have so many baby steps on the hardware side today that people often forget the milestones that all this hardware helped to achieve.

heck, my 20 years nephew is oblivious to all this, kids have access to all the information on the world and are more ignorants than me at 7.

Reply 54 of 62, by douglar

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ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-10-17, 22:12:

The prices are showing people are getting desperate to earn as much as possible from what they have.
Its actually a sign of a bad economy, especially when you consider what else is going on around us.

It will get to a point where people will take what ever they can get for it, and that will be a return to their normal prices.

I'd expect desperate people to sell low to sell now. I don't see a lot of that. These are people that are only willing part with their favorite part for a price.

Reply 55 of 62, by picmaster

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Let's add a positive point of view here - when I look at PDP-11 parts at the usual places, I think that retro PC parts' prices are not that bad at all! 😁

One of the things that I truly admire is how advanced* are some current retro-open-hardware projects these days! And I really hope that step-by-step we're going to reinvent the "trailing edge" of the technology (hahaaa!) with off-the-shelf parts and that this has the potential to normalize the prices and to eliminate the scarcity.

*advanced = in terms of efficient and practical use of technology, not by expensive or complex asics

Reply 56 of 62, by IBMFan

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picmaster wrote on 2025-10-17, 21:50:

As others already said, the old hardware fails victim to both greedy humans and time, and only a few people have skills and resources to repair stuff and keep it alive for a while. So my personal ranking is like this:

My #2 would be people hoarding everything to keep them in damp boxes forever without ever using any of it.
Compulsive buying nicknamed "collecting", even multiple identical pieces because one might go bad and other OCD reasons. You can be 100% sure that some guys have tens or even hundreds of your "rare" childhood hardware/software you are looking for and they are also the ones who are willing to pay +++ to be the ones who win the auction. As soon as they win though they quickly lose interest and it goes in the box. Sometimes they don't even check the thing they bought because the bidding high has already worn off and they don't really care about the actual item. They almost never sell anything because it goes against the spirit of "better having it and not needing than needing it but not having it".

Reply 57 of 62, by picmaster

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IBMFan wrote on Yesterday, 05:57:

Compulsive buying nicknamed "collecting"...

Putting aside all nuances and excuses for this, just point me to someone who's not guilty of this sin and let him first throw a stone 😁.

Reply 58 of 62, by Living

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picmaster wrote on Yesterday, 12:37:
IBMFan wrote on Yesterday, 05:57:

Compulsive buying nicknamed "collecting"...

Putting aside all nuances and excuses for this, just point me to someone who's not guilty of this sin and let him first throw a stone 😁.

me, never cared about that. I just want to use what i have and MAYBE have another 2 options as a backup, thats it.

i recently sold a CT1750 to a man who is trying to collect all the SB's apparently. That card sat without use for like 25 years AT LEAST (20 that dropped in my lap after a client upgrade), i didnt use it because i had much better options. So whats the point of keeping it storaged in a box? its borderline hoard when you obtain something and dont give it use. Whats the point of having 20 cards that do the same and you probably wont notice the difference?

dont get me wrong, i really enjoy fixing and using old hard, but i never adquired that taste of "gotta cath'em all", for what? staring at them like that episode of AVGN where he dreams that he obtains the Golden cartridge of the Nintendo 1990 world championship? its nice, but that fade fast.

Reply 59 of 62, by picmaster

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I completely agree with you and @IBMFan that this is a thing. Just noted that most probably our obsession into rare hardware/software easily and uncontrollably extends into the abyss of insanity 😁