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Wanna buy a pet, or 70?

One thing to keep in mind while making the seller offers is that they're recyclers, so any offer would have to meet/exceed what he can earn recycling them. I'd estimate a good 300 pounds of simple scrap steel, and there's other parts worth recycling (probably a goodly amount of gold, if you go that route).
 
a 4032 for $227 (shown working), and a 4016-12 for $49.99 (shown working).
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The 4016 showed up today. It had several keys stuck down. I'm going to clean the keyboard and test more tonight.

(Keyboard input is working, just hard to get a key to register like usual with old commodore keyboards until you clean them.)


Later,
dabone
 
Unknown_K said:
I just did a completed search and only 2 Pets came up as sold, a 4032 for $227 (shown working), and a 4016-12 for $49.99 (shown working). So even if you got all 70 in working condition and could sell them at $50 a pop thats $3500 minus paypal and whatever shipping boxes and gas to the post office 70 times costs. Sure some will sell for more and some won't sell at all (too fugly, missing parts, or broken).Not exactly a flood of units (well one was priced at $200 a few times but went unsold until the $49.99 price).
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But what about the one listed for $1599.95! :p
Seriously though $50 is by far the low end of a completed sale for this computer so I don't know if I'd use that as your mark (but also I wouldn't use $227). I've watched several Pets over the years, and its usually in between those prices like this untested one
 
Still pricey though if you end up with a large number of Pets with missing motherboards, rusted cases, broken screens, etc. That's where being local and a lower price would accommodate the saving of the systems better.
 
TanruNomad said:
But what about the one listed for $1599.95! :p
Seriously though $50 is by far the low end of a completed sale for this computer so I don't know if I'd use that as your mark (but also I wouldn't use $227). I've watched several Pets over the years, and its usually in between those prices like this untested one
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Sure pick the rare PET with the chicklet keyboard and built in tape drive (which none of the models for sale are) for a price estimate. ;)

There is no low end or high end range for this stuff its pretty random since there are not that many buyers, and once you start selling a few a week the price drops like a rock. Thats kind of the problem buying in bulk (way above scrap price) and hoping to make a profit eventually. If there was a huge amount of these around then stripping them for parts to resell might be worth it, but I don't think there is.
 
barythrin said:
Still pricey though if you end up with a large number of Pets with missing motherboards, rusted cases, broken screens, etc. That's where being local and a lower price would accommodate the saving of the systems better.
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A local buyer could go in and fire them up, pick the 10 best for a decent price (easy to move and store as well), and let the owner scrap the rest.
 
TanruNomad said:
He has 2001 models in there. Not sure about the chicklet keyboard though. That thing must be a pain to type on...
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Funny how the chicklet models are more valuable. Everyone who's ever used one say they're horrible to type on. Of course, you do get the built-in tape drive, so that's something, and I know collectibility and useability are not always on the same page.

The one he's got pictured (or was it two) are the non-chicklet type, BTW.
 
Unknown_K said:
Wasn't it last year a bunch of PETs along with other items were given away for free?
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Yes, in California. People got to pick one machine at a time or so. I think there was an eBay flood shortly after, but most of those machines were known to be DOA already at the time of picking them up.

Regarding how much you can sell them for, you must consider the time it will take to sell 70 PET's at reasonable profit. Realistically you can't sell more than one or max two per month to prevent prices dropping, not considering everyone else who will list PET computers as well. I think you should count on having sales going on for 3-5 years, starting from the day you have fixed the first one. PETs also tend to break even when not used and stored properly, so you'll have to test and perhaps fix each one as time goes on. That is more than three years of testing, repairing, selling and packing for a profit of a few thousand dollars at best. It is not quite what I call fast and easy money.
 
carlsson said:
Yes, in California. People got to pick one machine at a time or so. I think there was an eBay flood shortly after, but most of those machines were known to be DOA already at the time of picking them up.
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Actually it was pretty much luck of the draw. Some people picked up three and all three worked, others netted three doorstops. I had the luck of falling into the latter category.
 
KevinO said:
Funny how the chicklet models are more valuable. Everyone who's ever used one say they're horrible to type on. Of course, you do get the built-in tape drive, so that's something, and I know collectibility and useability are not always on the same page.
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Well, they were much more useable than an Apple I which didn't even come with a tape drive (or keyboard, monitor, case, etc.)...
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?31018-Apple-1-auction-at-Sotheby-s/page2
 
Hello, i'm the owner of that ebay lot, i have my partner taking care of the listing.

I'll answer any questions you guys have. Not interested in trying to spam you guys, or "omg buy this now!".

I own a large E-Scrap business in Idaho. We acquired a very large lot in Utah. Drove to pick it up. We bought all the commodores, plus other equipment. So none of it was free.

I'm glad to see their's some buzz! I don't know if this is allowed or not, but if you'd like to know more you can call my office at 208-389-8849. Anytime.

I'll check with you all later. Thank you!
 
IdahoCommodores said:
Hello, i'm the owner of that ebay lot, i have my partner taking care of the listing.

I'll answer any questions you guys have. Not interested in trying to spam you guys, or "omg buy this now!".

I own a large E-Scrap business in Idaho. We acquired a very large lot in Utah. Drove to pick it up. We bought all the commodores, plus other equipment. So none of it was free.

I'm glad to see their's some buzz! I don't know if this is allowed or not, but if you'd like to know more you can call my office at 208-389-8849. Anytime.

I'll check with you all later. Thank you!
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If you don't mind me asking, how did you find us and this thread?
 
Probably from me. I made an offer, and we traded some messages. I don't know if I mentioned the specific forum, but it was probably easy to find.

My own offer was actually too high for me to afford, so I breathed a sigh of relief when it was turned down. I didn't consider the cost of the U-haul AND gas from Iowa to Idaho both ways. My offer would have to be half of my original, and IdahoCommodores, you know what that offer was....:)

So...is anyone closer to these than 1400 miles? I know that few of us would want to see them go into scrap, but I ran the numbers a couple different ways, and the cost for me was just too steep.
 
I searched on Google "Lot of 70 commodores" and eventually found this thread.

I do remember your offer! My partner told me, and i answered the questions. To answer some more, if their are any:

Only about 60% of them have cords. I know for a fact their is 1, not sure if it's a PET or CBM, that has a "broken" monitor. The glass isn't broken, but in the middle of the screen, the phosphorous is blown away. Their are infact, 70 of them. I know in the picture it's a little difficult to tell haha. They were originally from Hill Air Force Base in Utah. They were sold in an auction (i think) to this guy. We received a call from said guy. We made an offer, and went from there. They were stored in a shed. Protected from rain and the elements. It's obvious that they are dirty. They were all hooked up to a server.
 
It's all good, welcome to the forums :) Sellers are always welcome to let us know more about their vintage deals. I've done that for a few folks as well, let them know their auction is being discussed here if they have any interest, etc or ask sellers if it's ok if I post their auction here. It's an impressive as hell haul btw.
 
SkydivinGirl said:
I love that they got them for free for recycling and now they want $4,300 for them. Quite sleazy. I wouldn't buy them just for that fact.

Heather
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Sorry to burst your bubble that you just "love that we got them for free".

However, it was far from free. We paid for the computer lot, plus costs for truck rental, food, lodging and fuel.

Are we still sleazy? Didn't think so.
 
KevinO said:
Probably from me. I made an offer, and we traded some messages. I don't know if I mentioned the specific forum, but it was probably easy to find.

My own offer was actually too high for me to afford, so I breathed a sigh of relief when it was turned down. I didn't consider the cost of the U-haul AND gas from Iowa to Idaho both ways. My offer would have to be half of my original, and IdahoCommodores, you know what that offer was....:)

So...is anyone closer to these than 1400 miles? I know that few of us would want to see them go into scrap, but I ran the numbers a couple different ways, and the cost for me was just too steep.
Click to expand...

No that was me. Didn't know IdahoCommodores came to the forum. I found it by Googling the item number. Anyways, IdahoCommodores operates his own recycling facility and I have mine. When this lot came up we joined efforts to move it and bring it in. We aren't solely recyclers. If something comes up that has more use versus being scrapped we try to do that.

Keep in mind on the Uhaul rental, they allot so many miles and then start charging .40/mile I believe it was. We rented 1 way so we fell under the alloted amount and didn't have extra charges.

If someone is interested they might pencil out the difference of driving 2 way or flying into Boise (Idaho) and renting a truck.

Would there be an interest in lots of ten shipped on a pallet? You guys would know better than us if they would survive a trip on a pallet. Seems it would be less likely to be tossed around by a careless delivery person.

Mark
 
If you divide them into lots of 10, it might be wise to group PETs of roughly the same model in the same lot, so the buyer would have plenty of spares. Although PET/CBM on the outside might look very much alike, there tends to be small differences as to circuit board, ROM version, sometimes type of RAM, of course keyboard and monitor that can be enough to not make parts from one machine fit the other.
 
Just stumbled across this. I am somewhat amused by the talk of "sleazy recyclers" followed up with people talking of buying the lot to repair and eBay, presumably for profit. ;)

Back in the mid 90's I worked at a computer store and we went to one of these DRMO auctions and bid on several pallets of old computer gear. One of the most interesting things offered for auction was a complete VAX system, complete with terminal server, a couple of racks of hard disks and tape drives and whatnot. All of it would have fit into a large UHaul. My boss saw my interest and jokingly said "you should bid $10 on it!" I told him, "No way, I'd probably get it and then I'd have to figure out how to transport the stuff." Probably went for way cheaper than what a hobbyist would have been willing to pay then.

Anyway, that is a really interesting find! So what happened to them all? Looks like the auction's over.
 
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