Hi, I'm also new to this forum, so I cannot say for sure if you have posted this into the right topic, but I'm ready to give some advice from my and my friends experiences.

Disclaimer: First, do NOT consider this official financial or trading advice, I'm not good enough to give that.

The thing with selling old HW in my experience is that it is basically a Balancing Act between different variables.

For example:
Selling internationally will give you a larger customer base, but also puts different countries laws and customs into consideration (And yes sometimes sellers have to deal with these too, not only the buyers).
Motherboard+CPU+Memory combos generally easier to move than separately, but separately better profit can be expected.
Tested HW can sell for a bit higher amount than untested, but testing takes time, so it depends on how much your time worth as money. (Is testing and debugging this card for 4 hours worth more than doing for example a contractor job for the same time?)

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-04-28, 07:20:

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Thanks for your advice Mage. I was hoping to get a bit more response on this one but I guess that this isn't really the proper forum. I'll muddle my way through and try to post whatever lessons I learn back here to maybe help someone else out.

I haven't sold stuff in bulk, so can't really advice on that. But, I would say that I have sold stuff in the past, or thrown it away, and deeply regret it now. Just be sure that you really won't want the items. Especially the rare stuff.

As a buyer, I would agree with MagefromAntares. Bundles are a better deal, so more likely to sell and less likely to be returned. Individual items tend to be overpriced but, often, you see the listing there quite a while before someone buys it. Check the sold prices rather than list prices to get an idea what it is really worth.

Usually I get better bargains when something is an auction. If it has a buy it now price, then usually I get it for the market rate (usually after making an offer on something that's slightly overpriced). One seller that I have bought a lot from tends to list items about 20% over their real value. Almost every time I have offered 20% less than asking price, my offer was accepted.

BerkeleyGamecat wrote on 2026-04-28, 04:25:

Next, what is the best way to sell old hardware? I see a lot of stuff available on Ebay, but is this the best approach?

Yes, it is. Highest turnover and highest profit. If you go to a reseller, you will probably get 40% or less of the ebay value. Just be aware of ebay's buyer protection. If the item is damaged during shipping or if the buyer lies about it being defective, ebay will take the buyer's side and you lose money. Shipping damage is a major concern here. If you don't want to deal with returns / disputes, sell it on classifieds, but you will get less money. Any heavy items that are likely to be damaged during shipping are candidates for that.

Once I pick a channel, how do I go about setting prices? Most of the prices that I'm seeing for the stuff that I look up is in the $40 to $70 range, but I've got a few semi rare pieces that might be worth $150+. Is it worth it to try to get things appraised, or should I just go with the average of all the prices that I can find online?

Yes, you should go with the average of all prices of ebay's sold listings. If you want to sell quickly, choose the lower boundary of that average. If there are no or very few sales to determine a price, set a broad price range for items from that category, and then further refine based on how desirable your item might be. For example: CRT monitors sell from 20€ - 2000€. Ones in good condition sell for 50€ or more. 19 inches sell for 90€ or more. Sony models sell for 150€ or more. Unicorn models sell for 1000€ or more.

Or: ISA graphics cards sell for 10-200€. Ones with your particular chip sell for 40-80€. Ones from a desirable brand sell at the upper end of that range, no-names at the lower end.

With a bit of experience, it's really easy to come up with a fair price this way. If you're still unsure, you can always ask fellow collectors in the forums.

Finally, how important is it to test these items? It's fairly easy to do perfunctory testing like plugging in a mobo to see if it POSTs, but to really 'test' a card I would need to track down drivers and hook it up to whatever it is that it's driving. I can do this, but it takes time. Does the price charged for an item vary dramatically based on whether or not it's been tested? Is it worth the effort, or do I just offer a money back guarantee?

If you want to save time: Do a basic POST test for medium-value items, sell them as working, and offer a return/refund later if it turns out to be defective. Reserve thorough testing for high value items. For those, the selling price is considerably higher if tested, often 100% or more, so the time spent testing pays off here.

Take a look at amibay.com. It's more EU-focused but there, but there are US-based sellers too. More importantly, it's one of the few platforms committed to openness regarding pricing, so even if you don't choose to sell there it can give a good indication of what this sort of stuff is worth. If you do choose to use it, note that moderation is unusually strict - there are a lot of rules and they expect you to stick to them.

If taking on the salesman roll doesn't fit your lifestyle, I know a vintage computer guy (not me) who sells collectable computer items on consignment for a percentage, I think around 30%. Obviously, you'd have to ship it all to him first. In a broader sense, this is an avenue I've been considering for my postmorten as I do not particularly trust next of kin to find a good home for all my [increasingly rare] computer parts. Another postmortem idea I've had floating around is to find a designated VOGONS person to leave your hardware to for the explicit purpose of freely distributing items to members. A bit of a digression: it would be nice to have a RIP thread for memorable VOGONS members who have past.

Thanks for all the replies! I wasn't expecting much traction on this so I hadn't checked back in awhile and was surprised to see all the new posts.

There's a lot going on in my life right now so this has become somewhat of a back burner project, but when I get moving on it again I'll be sure to keep all the advice in mind.

BTW - I'm intrigued by feipoa's idea of distributing whatever I don't sell to forum members. Although it will be nice to make a few bucks, it's almost as important to me to make sure that nothing ends up in the scrap heap.

(Unrelated - how do I mark up a user name so that they get notified?)