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Commodore PET model 8296..is it worth $1200 CDN ..not on EBay

R

RizThomas

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2012
Messages
198
Location
Surrey,BC,Canada
While my Commodore PET2001-8 is on the fritz, I decided to visit 2 of my favorite stops for retro stuffs
-FreeGeek where people bring "recycled computers,etc." ..picked up an Amiga 500 for $10 and Xbox360 (as is) for another $10
-The Hackery where they had some stuff (also on EBay)..got a Heathkit ET3200 digital designer for $20 and an Apple 5.25"Uni-Disk ext. floppy for $10. This store are a little bit pricey and they seem to know how much they want for vintage stuffs.

While at The Hackery, I saw about 4 Commodore PETs which the sales guys says starts at $500 for the PET4096 (I guess). The one that caught my eye is this yellowish, really classic looking Commodore 8296 ???. They want $1200 CDN for it. I can see it being pricey because it is the most sought out model but *sigh*...way beyond my $$$ capabilities.

Anyway, for serious collectors, come down to Vancouver,BC, Canada and pick it up....
 
Well, 500 CAD is outrageous to start with, even for a 4016. Well, unless it was a 4064 a.k.a. Educator. The 1200 CAD for a 8296 is so way out of league it barely is worth commenting. I doubt any serious collector will be willing to pay those amounts, at least not for a so relatively common machine as a 8296. I don't know quite what a reasonable price would be, 250-300 CAD?
 
I agree ...that is why I just gave them the smirk. I know there are quite a few Commodore Pet users here (during those good ol'days) but can't seem to see them anymore. Bet they are keeping their PET like I do.

I posted this because of my dissapointment on that store.
 
Wow, that seems odd, I've bought quite a few things from The Hackery's ebay store and always thought their prices weren't too bad.

There must be some sort of story behind that kind of pricing though, I mean if they weren't moving items you wouldn't think it would last...
 
yes.. when I was at the store, I bought the Apple Unidisk drive for $10 which I think is fair price. Also I got the Heathkit ET3200 for $20. However, they have also stacked up retro stuffs at their store...of course they know what people want, so i believe they are justified ask those prices.

The owner also knows what to keep. He has a Hyperion PC Clone (Canadian made) which he is not going to sell.

This thread was put up just for discussion and to pass on the info.
 
I would jokingly complain just to jest but to be nicer Next is a member here who gets to do most of the ebay stuff. I seem to recall him saying the store owner prices a lot of that stuff regardless of his suggestions of more practical pricing. But it'd be sweet just to see a store with that sort of gear in it these days.
 
carlsson said:
Well, 500 CAD is outrageous to start with, even for a 4016. Well, unless it was a 4064 a.k.a. Educator. The 1200 CAD for a 8296 is so way out of league it barely is worth commenting. I doubt any serious collector will be willing to pay those amounts, at least not for a so relatively common machine as a 8296. I don't know quite what a reasonable price would be, 250-300 CAD?
Click to expand...

Hello,

It's true, the pricing is out to lunch. I would never actually price them like that if I wanted to sell them. The reality is they are items we don't really want to sell. They have been in our collection for some time, and some of them took a while to get.

I will often throw out numbers that if someone actually wanted to spend that much, I'd would let it go out of our collection. We also rent the machines out to the movie industry so there is also that value attached to it for us too. If I don't have the model to rent, I loose X amount of dollars.

We might sell some doubles of what we have(in the PET collection) in the future, and of course with reasonable, everyday person type prices.

Cheers.

David
Owner of The Hackery
 
Ok, it makes sense that an item that really is not for sale would have an imaginary price tag far beyond what it normally would fetch. I have a few such computers in my collection too, but I'd rather tell anyone it is not for sale (or swap) at all rather than hefting a very high price quote. But perhaps it is true what people say about everything has a price, just that sometimes that price might be close to infinity. I mean I might have computers I'm not parting with for $1,000 but if I'm offered $10,000 I would have to rethink my strategy. If I was offered $100,000 for the same item, I'd probably give a damn whether it is ultra super rare or not.
 
I guess I may have started some discussion where my opinions did not do justice to "The Hackery"(David) and feel bad about it. I apologize if I have made some wrong impression of the store. Please don't get me wrong...I felt truly bad about the price which is something out of my budgetary capabilities (thus reason of my tirade). Now I know why...(see David's comment)

Since a lot of people bring their old computers to our local recyclers, I am glad that we still have the "Free Geek" and "The Hackery" who saves the vintage ones from being melted(???).

I hope I am still welcomed to browse at the store after this..cheers...
 
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RizThomas said:
...I apologize if I have made some wrong impression of the store.
Click to expand...
Well, I would think that other people might well get the same impression that you did, and also pass it on to friends; David might want to think about whether he really wants to spread the reputation that some of his prices are "out to lunch" (without the benefit of the explanation that he posted here).
 
I back dave on this.
I do the exact same thing when I'm working with a friend at the local flea market. My boss there owns an arcade machine running Puzzle Fighter II and set to Free to Play and he loves the thing. It attracts people to the booth. Of course people want to buy it all the time. I know it can be rude to pull the rug out from under you but it's always fun to see what someone will do when you say that the machine is for sale for $1600. Some people just say "oh" and walk away, several times people have actually tried to pull their wallet out, at which case I tell them I will have to discuss the sale with my boss, he comes over and tells them that no, the machine is not for sale.
While The Hackery does sell assorted gear both online and locally for fantastic prices, there is just some things we really can't let go of. In the cases of the PET or Hyperion, we decided that simply because it was so uncommon to come across them it would be better to leave them out for display and offer them as rental systems and while I can't say who has approached The Hackery regarding renting the hardware I can say we have been approached and rented out hardware on several occasions to local television amd movie production groups.
One instance I can however mention was when Disney rented out systems. The Macintosh seen in young Sam's bedroom in TRON Legacy was in fact on loan from FreeGeek.
Perhaps in the far future their (The Hackery) systems will become available for sale but for the forseeable future, sorry guys.
Still, it never hurts to ask, doesn't it? :)
 
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RizThomas said:
I guess I may have started some discussion where my opinions did not do justice to "The Hackery"(David) and feel bad about it. I apologize if I have made some wrong impression of the store. Please don't get me wrong...I felt truly bad about the price which is something out of my budgetary capabilities (thus reason of my tirade). Now I know why...(see David's comment)

Since a lot of people bring their old computers to our local recyclers, I am glad that we still have the "Free Geek" and "The Hackery" who saves the vintage ones from being melted(???).

I hope I am still welcomed to browse at the store after this..cheers...
Click to expand...

You are always welcome in our store, and if you email me directly I'll give you first stab at the PETs (when I decide to let some go). In fact I am glad you brought up this topic. I think I will refrain from throwing out silly prices in the future, and just stick to "It's not for sale" (which does get a bit boring after awhile). I have learned some valuable lessons and insight from this conversation.

In the case of the 8296, it has a very strong sentimental value to me. I'm one of the co-founders of Free Geek Vancouver and it was one of the first pieces of vintage gear we got, I see it as my "gold watch" for the blood, sweat and tears that were shed in the early days. I don't think it will ever be sold!

The Hyperion is another treasure. My personal collecting fancy is Canadian built technology. The Hyperion is a perfect example of our modesty, and how a company like Compaq which had way more advertising dollars blew them away. Just like the Avro Arrow, we lost a lot of good minds I think in the 70's and 80's to the US for jobs in the US computer industry sectors. My favorite piece of gear is a computer made in 1977 by Cybernex in Ottawa, ON (which is the same city Hyperion was in). I have no information on this Cybernex computer other than the model is a TH6416, if any one knows of this unit please let me know more about it.

Vancouver is not an easy place to do business. It has been rated as one for he most expensive places to live in North America, and as someone mentioned earlier about NeXT saying I would raise the prices he was suggesting, it was at times to reflect the amount of labour and cost involved in operating our eBay store. I think we have, on most items, managed to keep the price reasonable. Thankfully vintage gears is not the main revenue stream for our business or we all would not have jobs right now. I have some ideas for the future of our eBay store including flat rate pricing on certain items. For example all ISA video cards are X dollars, all sounds cards are X dollars. Of course there would be some exceptions, but I think overall it would be more popular and perhaps might invite people to watch our store more closely for those super deals. Trying to strike a balance between staying in business and giving fair deals is a hard line to walk.

I have enjoyed reading everyones comments.

Any suggestions are always welcome.
 
Perhaps you can say something like "it costs more than you have on your bank account" which might be a little more tongue in cheek way of saying it is not really for sale.

By the way, that "$500" machine was a 4016, right? RizThomas wrote 4096 which is a PET/CBM model number I'm unfamiliar with. If it happened to be a 4064, the price tag might be in the ballpark for some collector passing by so in that case you'd better adjust it upwards before it would be too late. :-D
 
The Hackery said:
...My favorite piece of gear is a computer made in 1977 by Cybernex in Ottawa, ON (which is the same city Hyperion was in). I have no information on this Cybernex computer other than the model is a TH6416, if any one knows of this unit please let me know more about it.
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I see some pictures of the TH6416 on the web but they're probably yours ;-)

I'm a little surprised that neither Dave Dunfield in Ottawa or the York U museum in Toronto mention the Cybernex since they both have a special interest in Canadian computers, but there were a lot of folks trying to get rich building computers in those days after all; even I built one, but it was for a specialized application (and I certainly didn't get rich ;-) )...

http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/
http://www.cse.yorku.ca/museum/
 
carlsson said:
Ok, it makes sense that an item that really is not for sale would have an imaginary price tag far beyond what it normally would fetch. I have a few such computers in my collection too, but I'd rather tell anyone it is not for sale (or swap) at all rather than hefting a very high price quote.
Click to expand...

I had a duplicate Amstrad PPC-512 in my collection, but I really wasn't that interested in parting with it, so when a German lawyer said how much, I just £100, because I *knew* he wouldn't pay that much for it. Guess what... he did.
 
paul.brett said:
I had a duplicate Amstrad PPC-512 in my collection, but I really wasn't that interested in parting with it, so when a German lawyer said how much, I just £100, because I *knew* he wouldn't pay that much for it. Guess what... he did.
Click to expand...
That's what some people sometimes forget when they call sellers idiots or morons for listing an item at a ridiculous (to them) price, that there are still folks out there to whom price isn't important and you just never know...
 
Off topic but welcome to the forums David :) Neat to have another collector join, interesting stories and cool to see your interest in the hobby too. I enjoy seeing lots of stuff you all have on ebay, usually (obviously) shipping is the killer lol, heck I saw one item I was temped to point out here for someone local but still cool that there's a store out there that sells vintage and arcade gear. I know I was looking at your SSI games :) but yeah it'd cost me $15 for a game and $25 to get it here ;-) Any plans to open up a Texas store? Austin is totally just like Vancouver .. if you take away the heat, cowboy hats/shoes, and maybe add a severe drought or two. j/k No more humidity problems though for ya Next.

Oh, comment I meant to make was in our Goodwill who has a computer collection attached to it (however QUITE UNFORTUNATELY doesn't seem to sell much good vintage gear anymore (really annoying since I'm sure I can guess where it's going)) but they USED to have some units for display on top of the shelves here and there. Yes it'd be exciting here and there for a sec when you hope it's for sale but they just put a plastic little sign indicating "DISPLAY" or DISPLAY ONLY which then yes they could still entertain offers but it's less confusing while still being able to put neat things on the shop floor. Similarly some of our vintage gaming stores have their collection corner or boxes lining the ceiling which I've always assumed are usually only display. I'd like to ask if they'd swap boxes for the Virtual Boy just to get the internal packing for mine which the owner lost.

Your price on those MVS carts is intriguing btw, while I know the technical value might be close those and the players are really hard to come across.
 
barythrin said:
Austin is totally just like Vancouver .. if you take away the heat, cowboy hats/shoes, and maybe add a severe drought or two. j/k No more humidity problems though for ya Next.

Oh, comment I meant to make was in our Goodwill who has a computer collection attached to it (however QUITE UNFORTUNATELY doesn't seem to sell

Your price on those MVS carts is intriguing btw, while I know the technical value might be close those and the players are really hard to come across.
Click to expand...

I love Austin! I have been there many a time. I have family in Smithville. I was down there Fall of 2011 just in time for the fires! Pretty scary time. I did get a chance to visit the Goodwill Museum just before I drove home (I don't fly). It is very well laid out. You are correct, Austin is like Vancouver plus the heat and cowboys. I am heading down again this year, lets make a deal on some stuff and I'll hand deliver some items for you.

As for the MVS carts. That is a good example of why I want to change the store a bit. I use to be a big fan of OBO, but it always makes it look like we are asking too much. I think perhaps it is better to just have a firm reasonable price. The only exception is things like a SE/30 Ansante Network card. The last one we sold for $190. They are pretty rare and we have another one up for $300OBO. Crazy price, but sometimes money is no issue for people and they will pay that - which in turn makes everyone's day in the shop good. I suppose auctions are good middle ground but I have having a reserve, and sometimes we get burned on the outcome. Opinions on this matter are welcome.

David
 
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