Yeah that's basically the entirety of Australia. It's cheaper for me to buy parts from Japan, including shipping. They adverise old TV/computer "disposal services" too on fbm and classifieds sites. Luckily their attitude is not quite as bad as you describe and you can negotiate at least.

I don't like rising prices either. However, the buying and selling behaviour in the retro hardware market seems identical to the buying and selling behaviour in most other areas of business and value. Figuring out how, when and where to obtain something relatively cheaply, then turning it to as much profit as possible is basically the definition of business - which most of us beaver away at for 40hrs/week in somebody else's employ, for companies whose objective is every bit as profit-predatory.

Petrol companies fight each other to get the cheapest and sell it for the most possible.

Food producers actively exploit entire countries.

"Noble" art collectors would rip each other off in a heartbeat to get a bargain and later sell it for a huge profit.

It's the way of the free market. Without buyers, there could be no sellers.

So hate it, but don't think it's novel.

Shreddoc wrote on 2026-05-09, 05:15:

I don't like rising prices either. However, the buying and selling behaviour in the retro hardware market seems identical to the […]
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I don't like rising prices either. However, the buying and selling behaviour in the retro hardware market seems identical to the buying and selling behaviour in most other areas of business and value. Figuring out how, when and where to obtain something relatively cheaply, then turning it to as much profit as possible is basically the definition of business - which most of us beaver away at for 40hrs/week in somebody else's employ, for companies whose objective is every bit as profit-predatory.

Petrol companies fight each other to get the cheapest and sell it for the most possible.

Food producers actively exploit entire countries.

"Noble" art collectors would rip each other off in a heartbeat to get a bargain and later sell it for a huge profit.

It's the way of the free market. Without buyers, there could be no sellers.

So hate it, but don't think it's novel.

Very logical post.

It really stinks when the seller's attitude is bad or they clearly have no interest in the hobby at all (buy and the relist without even looking at the thing), but in the end, someone is putting in the time and effort to do or obtain something that others are willing to pay a premium for. What they choose to do with their time, money and storage space is up to them.

If we're talking about essential items like buying up all of the food, water or energy in an area to exploit others, that is an entirely different situation. Collectible bits of old electronics are luxury items and aren't even needed to enjoy retro gaming thanks to emulation and other wonderful things (hence the name VOGONS - Very Old Games On New Systems).

If you enjoy the thrill of picking up an old beige box, tearing into it and seeing what it can do... I feel you. But the sad fact is that this isn't 2009. These systems have been getting scrapped as e-waste for 20+ years. They are going to become more scarce and we can't simply expect everyone to ignore that fact... especially the people who put in the time to find the stuff, or who have honed skills to identify, repair, maintain and resell them for 20+ years.

Personally, I'd love to be able to buy cheap cars from the 2000-2012 era forever since I prefer that level of complexity\reliability vs performance\efficiency, but lots of other people want the same thing, the cars continue to age and break, they get scrapped and become more scarce... so the prices are way higher than they seem like they should be, used car dealerships ask prices that people actually pay for them, and the prices are only going to go up for functional cars of that time period (just like most others).

It just stinks that, unlike old computers, I actually need my own vehicle so I can work and provide for my family in the part the world where I live. I'm hoping to keep my current 17 year old car on the road for as long as humanly possible. Oh how I *wish* cars and parts from that era were as plentiful and affordable as the old computer stuff I can purchase on ebay.

Scalpers are pieces of shit. Luckily there aren't much in my neighbourhood. What I have instead is a guy who sells thousands of untested crap on multiple account and makes it a lot more difficult to browse for offers than it needs to be. But it's just annoying and easy to avoid. He is a borderline scammer and those new to the hobby can have a bad experience with him.

Yes and they're not collectors nor hobbyists, they have a proper (side) job without the taxes. I refuse to buy anything from them on principle.

hucksters (eng)
perepooki (ukrainian meme)
barygy (rus)

There are people, usually companies who sell very expensive parts locally but nobody buys them. I'm not bothered as I'm not a potential customer.

I got stocked with hardware I wanted like 5 years back and now I'm slowly selling what I don't want anymore. I set a high price initially and decrease it about every 2-3 months. Eventually it will find a buyer and that will be fair price. I don't decrease price on items I would prefer to keep or items that are very rare. If someone really needs it, they can have it.

I sold one 17" CRT, all my socket A boards, a few CPUs, a few GPUs, a few hard drives, gave away old PSUs very cheap. Still have a few KT133, 440BX boards and a few coppermine slotkets.

I wouldn't worry about 286/386/486/Pentium hardware as you can easily emulate it for free, so not essential. 440BX/KT133 era hardware cannot be well emulated. Faster hardware is plentiful and there are alternatives.

It's been ages since anyone local sold real vintage gear at a decent price. If something did get sold and I missed it, it doesn't matter if it ended up on eBay or in some shed out back, I didn't snag it.

That's basically all of eBay and every antique store.

I've never frequented an antique store that doesn't have the same exorbitantly priced items sitting on the shelves for literal years.

I think they're fronts for the Mafia or something.

Yeah.

Or one thing I see often is someone selling a fairly popular or rare piece of hardware for a premium price, but it's completely untested and looks like it was just pulled from the trash. Like, c'mon, if I was willing to pay that kind of price, I could go to any other number of vendors who have the same thing but clean, tested and working for only a little higher price.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-05-09, 05:41:

It really stinks when the seller's attitude is bad or they clearly have no interest in the hobby at all (buy and the relist without even looking at the thing)

Right. They could at least submit high quality photos to an archiving site! Would that be so hard?

If there’s a possible brightside, the higher price floor that the scalpers create might help keep more rare parts out of landfills when people see that there is a market

Welcome to capitalism 101. You can argue about scummy behavior of people who tries to resell pokemon cards or other popular stuff that is brand new. But vintage hardware? Nope.

Someone made a job out of his hobby. Its like getting angry at the antique store for reselling old furniture at a markup.

It's true the antiques business has been running more or less along these lines for about 300 years, and before that it was "antiquities" for the wealthy which were more along the lines of bronzes, urns, sculptures, pillars, frescos, etc.

fiasn wrote on 2026-05-08, 23:46:

Maybe this issue is just local to me, but there are 2 specific people in my city who go out of their way to snap up any vintage hardware listing immediately, and then try to flip for like x5 what they paid. Not only that, but they refuse to negotiate their price because "I have been collecting computers for 30 years. I know what i have."... They both have a bunch of listings for hardware they are trying to flip that have been posted for over a year but they dont budge.

I am at my wits end with these people. Its genuinely cheaper to buy a full system on eBay than locally here, and its sucking the fun out of the hobby for me. I know a few people that also collect hardware in my city and they are sick of this dude as well.

Is this like a common thing? Do people seriously hoard vintage hardware just to scalp people for it?

Shreddoc said it well.

If they are buying it and flipping it at x5 price and they eventually manage to sell it then it means - they are right, they saw that the price could be upped and did it. And if they don't eventually sell it and let it go to waste, then that is what happened. Either way who are we to control what they are doing ?

awful as it seems when we are looking at it as a hobby and know that both us and the seller would be happy with the initial lower price, the very fact that such flipping pays the flipper means that someone out there is buying at those prices (and if not then not, still gone)

keenmaster486 wrote on 2026-05-09, 17:19:

I've never frequented an antique store that doesn't have the same exorbitantly priced items sitting on the shelves for literal years.

that's a good point and its where any impression that such behaviour is somehow keen and business like breaks down, lots of stuff on ebay just does the rounds forever - the virtual shelf. there's a time value to money, wait long enough and the item might just never sell. Not everyone who engages in this is exactly optimising revenue, profit, liquidity or anything. in fact many buyers get sunk cost invested in some item and rigidly insist on a price they never achieve, more fool them! (still, annoyingly the item is essentially gone..)

Never buy from these people. Here in Canada since opening the flood gates to all , there are a ton of people with no 9 - 5 and they can pick up anything at any time for cheap and they hit t hrift stores all day and snatch up anything good and try to sell it for top dollar. Its not just new commers though its also "digital Creators" with no real job who spend hours each day thrifting and posting things to resell. With the job market I dont really blame them though as canadians are losing jobs by the tens of thousands while we also give out 200K new temp foreign worker invites. Its much ahrder to find machines or even games like i used to collect. but if you try and try you can find something here and there

You people made spot on comments.
This is a business, it makes you hateful and merciless but it's business.
I can't find anything at a reasonable price unless I get lucky.

Guys and girls, I don't see the point in complaining about the greed of the "entrepreneurs". That's how the capitalist system works and it's all over the world for many decades, since it's "the best one". Isn't it? 😁

aVd wrote on 2026-05-18, 14:25:

Guys and girls, I don't see the point in complaining about the greed of the "entrepreneurs". That's how the capitalist system works and it's all over the world for many decades, since it's "the best one". Isn't it? 😁

This theme already surfaced and in many more forums.
It's just a venting opportunity. At least it's how I live it.

It's business. Period.
But we still feel unhappy about it 🤣
I'd like to play with a LS-240. Sold in Japan, price out of my threshold, not my wallet.
My problem if I 'm not ok with the price. Collecting is the same old since forever, one wants and other sells for a high price (see my signature; kotel phrased it well).