Selling retro rigs?

[hunterjwizzard]

I've discovered in the course of my retro-gaming career that I enjoy building, configuring, and testing machines quite a lot more than actually playing video games(and that goes for the latest triple-A tittles, not just my retro collection).

I am also, coincidently, finding myself in need of extra income.

So I'm curious: is there a little money to be made building, tuning, and selling retro game systems? Or does everyone who gets into this hobby want to build there own?

It wouldn't have to be a huge profit margin. I just like building things.

 

[Unknown_K]

Desirable parts will sell, but you lose money on building high end systems.

 

[Plasma]

Yes, sadly the components separately are worth more than a complete system.

 

[Timo W.]

I doubt people will buy newly-built "retro" systems. People either buy stuff from Compaq. IBM, Packard Bell and the like, or systems that were built by small, mostly unknown brands back then. Just sticking some old parts in an old case does not make a retro PC that has any value to anyone.

So yes, you are better off selling parts. But unless you have a source to get the parts very cheap, don't expect to make money with it.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

This is interesting. If you search "retro gaming PC" on ebay, you'll find hundreds of listings. I guess these are not actually selling?

 

[Timo W.]

I don't think you understood my post, or only read half of it.

 

[Plasma]

This is interesting. If you search "retro gaming PC" on ebay, you'll find hundreds of listings. I guess these are not actually selling?

If you look at the sold listings, you can see what people have bought. Most of them sold for less than $200.

If your source of parts is ebay, there is no way you can make a profit or even break even building and selling a complete retro system. The sellers making a profit are using cheap recycled office gear (or estate sale finds) and just installing Windows 98 or XP.

If you already have a stash of parts, sure you can put something together and sell it. But you would make more selling the parts separately.

 

[Unknown_K]

The only way to make more money selling systems is if you are a famous youtube personality selling rigs you built for the channel. You will also be flooded with offers to buy stuff.

Most of the stuff on ebay for W98 and XP machines are much newer gear (not period correct) with low end components. It sells eventually at reduced prices.

If you could go back in time, say 15 years and hoard cards, you will make a profit (but much less then just investing in stocks).

 

[hunterjwizzard]

If you could go back in time, say 15 years and hoard cards, you will make a profit (but much less then just investing in stocks).

If I could go back in time I'd kill Hitler. That goes without saying.


Anywho, thanks for all the useful thoughts!

 

[bzotto]

So I'm curious: is there a little money to be made building, tuning, and selling retro game systems? Or does everyone who gets into this hobby want to build there own?

Well, your core insight here is probably useful: surely not everyone who wants to indulge in some retro-gaming is excited about burning countless hours retro-autoexec-dot-bat-debugging. So there must be *some* market out there for guaranteed turnkey retro game systems. But my suspicion of the basic economics is along the lines of others above-- probably pretty grim for the baseline "here's a complete old computer" build relative to components cost and (most importantly) the value of your own time putting it together.

I might spend some time trying to suss out a corner of the market that isn't being well served where you can add extra value using your own skills over and above the "technician" tier of work. A real turnkey system probably comes with a decently generous seller guarantee and a return or support policy. Maybe it comes with a full set of correct hardware adapters and cables and parts to hook up to an LCD monitor or whatever and a nicely printed super understandable Quick Start guide. Maybe it comes loaded with software out of the box (setting aside how that might happen). Maybe it has custom software that runs at system start that can select various configuration environments for different games, so your customers never ever need to do anything but play games. Maybe it's just guaranteed to be super well cleaned and never smell like insurance office or damp basement or Febreze.

I don't know what the customer needs are here, but you could do some basic poking around to find out what turns people off from retro PCs and see if you can lower the barriers for an amount of money that people would be willing to pay. No idea whether you could, but I'd be thinking in that sort of direction. That isn't a world I spend any time in (I did my hard time with sound blaster clones and config.sys files in the 90s and never again is too soon) so maybe all of the above is moot anyway based on common tools today anyway, but good luck if you go after it.

 

[Unknown_K]

There used to be a shop close to me that sold refurb computers at somewhat decent pricing since he had a deal to get inventory from a decent sized e-waste recycler and even he closed down. Granted that guy had a storefront to pay for but rent isn't that expensive around here.

Offering a warranty or tech support on 10+ year old hardware is asking for time consuming headaches and people returning things they broke. I do think if you can find a recycler to snag vintage systems or parts from at a few times scrap value you can build up a nice inventory of parts for testing and resale locally if you live in a big enough city. There are lots of people who don't like eBay and only deal with cash transactions locally. You do have to know the hardware. Being able to fix other people machines might also make you some money.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

Being able to fix other people machines might also make you some money.

I've gone down this route in the past, but ultra-cheap electronics and the preponderance of mobile devices killed my business. I was strictly in PC and laptop repair, no phones, no tablets. So not only did most of my customer base disappear, but for what remained it became cheaper to buy a new one than fix it most of the time.

Your used shop went out of business for the same reason. My own local recycler had their own shop that did the same thing. There was a time when having "a computer" was a necessity, and it was ok if that computer was several years out of date. Today everyone's got a smart phone and there's an app for everything.

 

[Unknown_K]

Well, you can do pretty much anything on a computer that is 6 years old if you have enough RAM and space. Granted you can get new laptops at Walmart cheaper than repairing that 6 year old PC if it breaks.

I know years ago when I was getting a haircut my barber (my age or slightly older) didn't even have a home computer just a cell phone for doing everything (and he had high end phones). You can store all your music, videos etc and its very portable and your home bigscreen is a smart TV anyway so you don't need a computer for that anymore. The barbers kids had tablets.

 

[T-R-A]

Gotta agree with the previous two posts. While you might make a few bucks on occasion, you're probably going to be disappointed. The actual need for a PC at all anymore is growing less and less.... doubtful that you're going to make more than "a little money" on such a venture. Plus the aforementioned offering warranties/tech support can make your life a nightmare (I did it myself many moons ago).

It may seem (by the number of people who visit this site) that there'd be a good market for old hardware, but in reality we're pretty much a niche group... mostly interested in preserving what we perceive as having value to ourselves.

 

[Moondog]

Sounds like a niche market. Too much a niche to be a reliable source of income. Some collectors and gamers can be fickle regarding parts and brand names. If someone is willing to pay top dollar or re-create their favorite or ideal gaming rig, they probably have in their mind a brand specific motherboard with specific features. Some models of boards were known for their ability to be overclocked. Same applies with the case, video card, and sound card. Storage may be another selling factor. Some gamers are fickle about models of hard drives, or may want something presumable more reliable than a 25 year old hard drive.

My first PII system had a 300A Celeron cpu. This was known for being very easy to overclock - if you had a motherboard which allowed you to fiddle with the bus speed, multipliers and voltages independently. A friend had one that ran stable at 504mhz. The motherboard I had was a cheapo PCChips which had a limited range of tweaking options. I couldn't overclock it very high and it wasn't very stable. Later on my cousin moved over to Macs, and gave me his PII 350 system. This system had a more desirable board regarding overclocking features. By then I moved up to newer, faster cpu's and the coolness factor had faded.

 

[JAXVintagePC]

There is someone in RI that appears to make it work. But he combines electronic waste haulage with an eBay store and Facebook page/activity.

Newenglandretrocomputers | North Scituate RI

Newenglandretrocomputers, North Scituate, Rhode Island. 175 likes · 18 talking about this. Located in Rhode Island we buy and sell Vintage Computers like IBM Apple Tandy Commodore Amiga……

www.facebook.com

When you convert all the expense (fuel, insurance, storage, maintenance ) and hours I am not sure it works out to a good hourly wage.

Plus to make people give you tons of electronic waste with some $ in it you usually have take out the trash (obsolete but not vintage equipment and the worst of all: CRTs).

Learning a trade or driving Uber/Lyft to make extra $ seems a safer bet to me.

With eBay I find the seller has all the risk. Return fraud, damaged in shipping and very high fees.

Selling on AmiBay, VCFED, Facebook, Reddit, CPU World and so is extremely time consuming and frustrating.

I also have a friend who buys notebooks cheap and cleans/refurbishes these and sells these to students with a decent margin. But this is also very time consuming so not great from a hourly wage perspective. The upside is that notebooks are always in demand, take up less storage and can be repaired fairly easy.

 

[Moondog]

Interesting, but a lot of e-waste to be sorted through.

OEM systems and brand named parts are more likely easier to sell than complete DIY systems full of mystery parts. The individual parts may be worth more than the complete systems they arrived in.

 

[VERAULT]

There is someone in RI that appears to make it work. But he combines electronic waste haulage with an eBay store and Facebook page/activity.

Newenglandretrocomputers | North Scituate RI

Newenglandretrocomputers, North Scituate, Rhode Island. 175 likes · 18 talking about this. Located in Rhode Island we buy and sell Vintage Computers like IBM Apple Tandy Commodore Amiga……

www.facebook.com

When you convert all the expense (fuel, insurance, storage, maintenance ) and hours I am not sure it works out to a good hourly wage.

Plus to make people give you tons of electronic waste with some $ in it you usually have take out the trash (obsolete but not vintage equipment and the worst of all: CRTs).

Learning a trade or driving Uber/Lyft to make extra $ seems a safer bet to me.

With eBay I find the seller has all the risk. Return fraud, damaged in shipping and very high fees.

Selling on AmiBay, VCFED, Facebook, Reddit, CPU World and so is extremely time consuming and frustrating.

I also have a friend who buys notebooks cheap and cleans/refurbishes these and sells these to students with a decent margin. But this is also very time consuming so not great from a hourly wage perspective. The upside is that notebooks are always in demand, take up less storage and can be repaired fairly easy.

yeah, but his prices are ebay prices.........

 

[Unknown_K]

I think CRTs for vintage gaming are making a comeback which is why I kept all my working units (or I am just a packrat take your pick).

Sales in general is time consuming and frustrating but most people don't want a job that gets their hands dirty or can get them hurt.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

CRTs, especially large CRTs, are making a comeback. I had a 22" viewsonic I hung onto all these years. The games just look better on it than the same system hooked directly to my 4K flat panel.

Also, as a bonus, CRTs are still 4:3 aspect ratio, so not stretching. Yes you can get a 4:3 flat panel easily enough, but if you're going to go retro... go big.