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Wanna buy a pet, or 70?

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
 
It doesn't say they got them for free, all it says is "They were acquired for recycling purposes". In this case, I would take the assumption they were acquired via a surplus auction.

For myself, I don't equate that with being "free". In the early 90s, I worked at a "used computer store" whose parent company was a recycling center. They would bid on surplus lots, usually by the pound. They'd then take the "interesting" stuff for sale in their retail store. I myself acquired some rather interesting things, like a PDP-11/83 for $100, where I'd bet they probably paid $100 for the rest of the whole lot which the PDP part of. The rest was recycled; the scrap material is usually worth more than the computer itself. Computer collecting is not necessarily a new hobby, but in the early 90s, it was esoteric enough that not many people knew what these things would ultimately be worth. If ahm sees this, he can probably attest to the IBM System/360 we saw one day, waiting for the man to come with his hammer...
 
It doesn't say they got them for free, all it says is "They were acquired for recycling purposes". In this case, I would take the assumption they were acquired via a surplus auction.
It also says in the details that they are getting rid of them to free up the space.

Personally, I think the price is about right. I haven't seen a working PET go for less than €100 or $120 recently, and these are being priced at half that. I think you would be able to get 2/3 of them working without too much effort and make your money back quite quickly and have fun in the process. If I lived in the US, I might even consider it. Anyone want to go in on a business proposition? :)

Rob
 
*insert much drool over keyboard*
Thats a steal! ( yes its a lump sum of money however as mentioned)
Say 60 were working units.
You set up a buy it now for $80.
thats $4800 from that, If theres a superpet or since theres the floppy drives I am almost sure you can fetch $150 for a single working floppy drvie unit.
I paid $100 for my 8050.

However, theres the transportation fees.... Maybe you could send an offer in for $3500 so you can cover driving home. I wish I could pick up this lot, a student can't quite afford even a 2 grand lump sum usually. :p
 
If I'd live close enough that the pickup wouldn't be a total killer and if I'd have the $4300 for the investment, I'd already have clicked the Buy It Now button. It's a lot of money but you can probably get twice that if you put some time into cleaning these up and making them work and then sell them again. I expect all of these to show up on eBay again soon.

===Jac
 
Wonder if we could have someone pool together peoples money in hopes we'd have some single PETs shipped out to users here :p
Or I could just be having way to high of hopes & dreams.
 
Unfortunately Idaho is on the other side of the US, and even if I could negotiate the seller down to say $2,000 for the lot, it would still be beyond my means. And to say nothing of storage and work space.

I do hope the lot does get picked up by someone, but I also feel it'll end up being a labor of love. We'd probably all agree we'd rather see even busted PETs in the hands of beginners and vets alike, rather than thinking about them being melted down for scrap.
 
Pretty cool but even the description mentions missing keys, and power cords so obviously not a fully operational lot. Given that'd be damn awesome for someone close by. They do say they're open to sell smaller lots possible although the same applies. If one was really to go there ya might as well try and make an offer on the shibang. I can only imagine the divorce papers if my wife saw me come back with those.. of course.. I guess I could just instantly fill up a storage unit.
 
That's quite a reasonable deal and he said or best offer too, so maybe he'll take $3000? It's about a 15hr drive one way for me, who wants to go on a road trip? Too bad I don't have a garage.
 
Might be dumb but did anyone count the units? I only glanced and it looked awesome but didn't look like 70 right off the bat.
 
Yeah, I managed to get a count of about 50, based on the rows. There must be another row in there we can't see.

At $61.50 each, plus transport costs, let's say they're about $75 each. That's a little too high for me. We also have no idea what they've been through. What if they've been in a flood or something? There could also be a tendency to become your worst enemy on Ebay. I was thinking, what would happen to the price if you had two or three PETs on Ebay every week? I think it would drive the price down, and you'd end up with a bunch of computers you could barely get what you paid.

Obviously, you'd have to keep a few for yourself too! We wouldn't be here in the forums if we were all about flipping computers!

I think half that price would be more fair....but that's just me.
 
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It also says in the details that they are getting rid of them to free up the space.

Personally, I think the price is about right. I haven't seen a working PET go for less than €100 or $120 recently, and these are being priced at half that. I think you would be able to get 2/3 of them working without too much effort and make your money back quite quickly and have fun in the process. If I lived in the US, I might even consider it. Anyone want to go in on a business proposition? :)

Rob

I agree with you Rob..but unfortunately all good stuff is in the US:(
 
Yeah, I managed to get a count of about 50, based on the rows. There must be another row in there we can't see.

At $61.50 each, plus transport costs, let's say they're about $75 each. That's a little too high for me. We also have no idea what they've been through. What if they've been in a flood or something? There could also be a tendency to become your worst enemy on Ebay. I was thinking, what would happen to the price if you had two or three PETs on Ebay every week? I think it would drive the price down, and you'd end up with a bunch of computers you could barely get what you paid.

Obviously, you'd have to keep a few for yourself too! We wouldn't be here in the forums if we were all about flipping computers!

I think half that price would be more fair....but that's just me.


Thats a great Point! Now did this calculate at the full price or with offer pricing? Because if you were to offer $3000-$3250 it would have more room for profit.
 
Not sure how you could bid on this (doesn't even seem to show all 70 units) without a closer inspection unless you offer under $1000 and hope for the best. There are too many costs associated with moving and storage plus I bet there is a ton of stuff missing. Either this stuff was snagged from a recycler (hence cut cords and who knows what else is missing) or somebody was using these for parts donors fixing up other units. Lets be honest the time involved restoring these will be massive plus once you sell a few on ebay the going price will start dropping because of supply.
 
I already offered half of what he was asking, and he politely declined. I risked the wrath of Ebay and sent the seller a message to contact me directly IF they don't sell. I'm a long away from Idaho and getting them for myself would be very costly, but I also really don't want to see them go to scrap. So if he does contact me and a deal can be made, I will come back here and see if someone is willing to pitch in and help.
 
Yeah, I managed to get a count of about 50, based on the rows. There must be another row in there we can't see.

At $61.50 each, plus transport costs, let's say they're about $75 each. That's a little too high for me. We also have no idea what they've been through. What if they've been in a flood or something? There could also be a tendency to become your worst enemy on Ebay. I was thinking, what would happen to the price if you had two or three PETs on Ebay every week? I think it would drive the price down, and you'd end up with a bunch of computers you could barely get what you paid.

Obviously, you'd have to keep a few for yourself too! We wouldn't be here in the forums if we were all about flipping computers!

I think half that price would be more fair....but that's just me.

First of all, why would anyone pay the sticker price when the seller said "or best offer"? And secondly, for as long as I can remember there have always been 2-3 Pets on ebay at any given time and that hasn't seemed to drop the price. Some computers hold their price very well, despite a flood in the market. I think 70 people would gladly pay the current market rate for a working or non-working machine. If I had the time/space and maybe a partner to work on this with, I'd gladly offer $2500 or so and take my chances! Even if you only get 12-15 of them working, that's your money back right there!
 
First of all, why would anyone pay the sticker price when the seller said "or best offer"? And secondly, for as long as I can remember there have always been 2-3 Pets on ebay at any given time and that hasn't seemed to drop the price. Some computers hold their price very well, despite a flood in the market. I think 70 people would gladly pay the current market rate for a working or non-working machine. If I had the time/space and maybe a partner to work on this with, I'd gladly offer $2500 or so and take my chances! Even if you only get 12-15 of them working, that's your money back right there!

I'm not so sure about that. Part of the problem is that I'm so far away, I have to add about $1500 travel cost. So for me, that $2500 becomes $4000. That means I would have to sell 15 of them for $266 each (or 30 for $133) to get my money back. Also, who knows how many of them are broken, and how many good ones you'll get? Also, you're right, there's always 2-3 PETs on ebay at any given time, listed for outrageous prices that nobody pays. Don't use the current listings, look at completed listings.

For example:
1 PET 4016 listed for $200 NOT SOLD
1 PET 8032 sold for $227.50. (that's pretty good)
1 PET 4016 sold for $49.00

I want to repeat, I'm not someone wanting to just make a ton of money, I just want to be able to make my money back, and maybe keep a couple PETs for myself. I've got 3 8032s already, and one 4016. I'd like to own a 2001.

Also, the seller says there's only 1 8050 disk drive included, but there are a dozen empty cases, for what that's worth. With the exception of the one visible C= drive on top, the pile on the right side of the picture has nothing to do with the PETs for sale.
 
Nothing lost in the offer though. He says he'd be willing to sell a smaller quantity probably so it will likely start going that direction or he might counter offer after the auction ends. I too would be looking (if I was seriously looking) at something a lot closer to $2000 or less for the lot but even then the cost of transportation and renting a vehicle to get them, a place to store them, a couch I would need to go sleep on.. it adds up to more trouble than I'd be interested in. Interestingly if he was to just post them as-is for $50 he'd end up with theoretically (if he has 70 and they all sold) $3500. He would also likely sell a lot more although then you have shippers demolishing them and ending up with potential pissed off buyers so who knows.
 
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). Wasn't it last year a bunch of PETs along with other items were given away for free?
 
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