• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

What's going on with ebay's Vintage Computing section?

C

curtis

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2003
Messages
1,176
Location
Amarillo, TX
The past couple of days I've noticed the number of listings hasn't just increased, it's skyrocketed! Went from around 7000 to over 21000!

I also noticed I'm not having to look at any more aucdtions, but the numbers sure have jumped.

Anyone know what's going on?
 
The number of listings has increased in the last couple days, or you just noticed in the last couple days that the number of listings has increased recently?

If it's the latter, I'd say it's the economy. People looking for an extra buck where ever they can find one.

If it's the former, who knows? Coincidence?
 
Ebay is combining the store items with auctions. That must be why they are showing up. Store items didn't show up in the search list before unless you refined the search. Now they are all mixed together.
 
Or perhaps eBay is scrapping all their extra listing fees and will automatically list all items available to you worldwide, no matter where in the world they are located and on which site they originally were listed? That would surely be a big step forward, if the default was to list every possible item and it was up to you to filter the selection.
 
I generally will view items ending within the next 24 hours and that number has bumped up tremendously to the tune of 1400 items. When viewing new listings, it's generally around 300-400 items. Don't see how the higher numbers can maintain their levels for very long.

Guess Vintagecomputerman may be right. Shoving all the store items in with the regular auctions. That and mayber carlsson has something too!
 
eBay has indeed recently made the move to include store inventory items in default search. Nice if you are looking for something particular with a pocket full of 100 dollar bills, sadly most store items are drastically over-priced. (although I too have taken to listing items with a 30 day duration in a buy it now or best offer option essentially setting up many of my items in reverse auction format)

-Lance
 
Kind of interesting that, so far, the only difference is the number of items that are ending withing 24 hours vice the number of new items. Items ending is upwards of 1000+ while new items are 400-600. Unless they're phasing in the BIN and store items.

Still makes for a messy listing if I'm just monitoring what's going on and seeing if there's anything interesting out there that I could snag.
 
Hi
I saw a hole pile of hard disk drives just get listed. As long as your not
looking for a drive or a computer with a drive in its title, you could remove
the disk drives.
Dwight
 
Something else worth noting...the definition of "vintage" is warping. I keep seeing people calling P1 and even P2 stuff "vintage" so hits for "vintage computer" might include stuff not remotely...vintage.

And of course, as the definition warps to more common hardware, more people will see the opportunity to call their very common and hardly valuable stuff "very uncommon and quite valuable", thus increasing the amount of crap on eBay.
 
While at the same time, causing the real vintage stuff to go sky high in price.

Interesting note: I saw an average XT clone go for like $2,000 or something on ePay.
 
linuxlove said:
While at the same time, causing the real vintage stuff to go sky high in price.

Interesting note: I saw an average XT clone go for like $2,000 or something on ePay.
Click to expand...

Im not surprised, I just discovered a seller trying to pass of an Imac G3 233 as "Vintage" (I have one, not even close). I just found an IBM PCJr which is going for $221.95 (excluding shipping which is another $59.11). Prices are going up, and these new computers are part of the reason.
 
While I generally agree with you all that "vintage" should be reserved to special items (and please not THAT discussion again!), part of me cheers anyone who will retain these newer but today obsolete computers. Me and you probably won't care, but 20 years from now some may regret not keeping a complete Pentium III system. Besides there are few alternative words these sellers can use to classify their items. Words such as "old", "obsolete", "retired" probably will attract noone while "vintage" or "collectable" might get some eyebrows raised even we "know" these items are neither.
 
carlsson said:
While I generally agree with you all that "vintage" should be reserved to special items (and please not THAT discussion again!), part of me cheers anyone who will retain these newer but today obsolete computers. Me and you probably won't care, but 20 years from now some may regret not keeping a complete Pentium III system. Besides there are few alternative words these sellers can use to classify their items. Words such as "old", "obsolete", "retired" probably will attract noone while "vintage" or "collectable" might get some eyebrows raised even we "know" these items are neither.
Click to expand...

This is very true. Alot of the Core 2 and Sempron computers of today will end up being the Vintage computers of tomorrow. This is why my advice is not to throw any electronics away. Your Iphone will in 30 years be a "vintage item". As for the regard on the use of words like old, obsolete, and retired this is also true as many sellers want to market there stuff to gain the highest posibble profit. Placing them in the Vintage computer section wont help much though, alot of people that want a "used, but not vintage" machine will look in the non-vintage sections (atleast in my experience they have).
 
I rarely look in the vintage section because most things in there are over priced. So I just do general searches in the computer section and see what comes up (sorted by price and shipping lowest).

Everything will be a collectable one day, the key is to pick a specific area to collect and stick with it. For my gaming hobby I have hardware from the Tandy1000/XT to P3/Athlon in the 1999 era. Anything after that is whatever I use as my main machine and the stuff in between gets passed on to others.

Prices are going up for vintage gear, I guess it is the new bubble investment.
 
I've stopped collecting largley due to the cost for parts and computers on E-bay.

Back in 2002, when I started really using E-bay for this, things were stupid cheap. I could buy an XT clone for $40.00 at most, and when I sold computers, then prices went up, and I tried to sell honestly, only to get only $5.00, and I did not complain, because I made someone happy, and in some twisted way, the thought that I got someone a machine they might have had to comb the thrifts and dumpsters for for hours might really appreciate that.

Now I'm holding onto what I've got. Someday, I'll have something worthy of being passed down or sold to the benefit of my heirs.
 
Things are getting kind of pricey on ebay, but you can still get a deal once in a while.

If it wasn't for the local recycler I would not have added much to my collection last year.

I think the money aspect of this hobby could be a bubble, you have no idea what the stuff will be worth in 20 years.
 
Unknown_K said:
Things are getting kind of pricey on ebay, but you can still get a deal once in a while.

If it wasn't for the local recycler I would not have added much to my collection last year.

I think the money aspect of this hobby could be a bubble, you have no idea what the stuff will be worth in 20 years.
Click to expand...

Hi
Some items will always go up in value while others will just float up and down.
Most of the items we collect are the float up and down type. Do remember
rare is not the same as valuable. I have several rare computers that would
not have spectacular prices on eBay.
Dwight

Dwight
 
While that does cross my mind (and I'm horrible about getting things out of the house and letting go of stuff) but I'm at that troublesome time of being fairly out of room (making room but also close to out). I have some things I grabbed out of curiosity as younger and other things like dms said where I wonder "should I hold onto this? Should I keep this box? .. in 20 years it'd be worth something maybe?" but I really don't have time or space to do so and keep the stuff I'm interested in now. I'll have to ditch some networking and phone gear sometime soon probably (the things I'm least connected to right now). We had another thread with a similar comment but it was regarding collecting and not everything is worth something in the end. You can save all the baseball or basketball cards you want but far as I can tell they're close to worthless now and the players retired so they were hot while the players were hot. Same thing with your car.. sure you can keep it around when you buy a new one for 30 years but noone says it's going to be a collectible classic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top