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Why the bleep is eBay so expensive??

More collectors and less stuff to buy so prices rise.

The key to a cheap hobby is to collect stuff nobody else wants.

I was lucky enough to find freecycle back when old computers were literally junk, picked up some stuff on ebay when shipping was cheap and most sellers viewed it as a garage sale and not a money making venture. And I was lucky enough to snag items other collectors wanted gone, stuff that was not worth shipping, and a local recycler who let me buy whatever I wanted at a 2-3x scrap prices.

These days shipping is expensive, people make a living off of ebay, freecycle is pretty much dead, and most collectors have a long list of people wanting their gear for $$$ (I get PM all the time on forums from people looking to buy something I mentioned in the forum). Also sadly the local recycler went bust which is probably a good thing since I have no room for more machines anyway.

Then you have scrappers who recycled whole generations of machines.

So all this talk about why are prices going up is kind of puzzling for me. Even during my weekly trips to the recycler a decade ago most of what was there were P2/P3 machines and they tried to refurb anything P4 and newer. You have to go back 20 years to find cheap Amiga equipment.
 
It comes in Waves guys. I liked old hardware even in the 80's (we were poor I could only get older stuff) and into the 1990's. I had no idea this would become a "thing" none of us did. And youd be crazy to think that this wont plateau and crash. Do you really thinks 5 year olds today will give a rats ass about an apple II or Commodore 64 (or anything in that genre or older) when they get old enough to have interests in hobbies? This dies with us for the most part..... I'm being buried with my horde in a sunken shipping crate. Noone gets my stash!
 
It comes in Waves guys. I liked old hardware even in the 80's (we were poor I could only get older stuff) and into the 1990's. I had no idea this would become a "thing" none of us did. And youd be crazy to think that this wont plateau and crash. Do you really thinks 5 year olds today will give a rats ass about an apple II or Commodore 64 (or anything in that genre or older) when they get old enough to have interests in hobbies? This dies with us for the most part..... I'm being buried with my horde in a sunken shipping crate. Noone gets my stash!

Some will and some won't. Look at some other hobbies for examples. There are actually more 1932 Fords on the roads today than Henry made in 1932. Which is kind of amazing when you take into account how many were collected and melted down in WWII scrap drives. How can that be? The demand for originals outpaced the supply enough to create and nurture a thriving "repop" industry.

https://brookvilleroadster.com/

Another company was doing so well restoring Ford Broncos that Ford has brought a modernized version back into production.

But I'm sorry to break to to you 1960 Mercury fans. There ain't a whole lot of love going around for the ugliest car ever made this side of France.

Bottom line? If you have an Altair or an IMSAI 8080, hang on to them. Ditto for just about anything DEC. Some things are already selling for more than they did new, and the prices are not likely to be dropping any time soon if ever.
 
I wonder about this regarding technology in our time. It's really hard to imagine that anyone will want <something on your desk that is not vintage> in 20-40 years, but since we do for things that were produced 20-40 years ago, will they? Maybe an interesting discussion for another thread?

The thing, to me, about the mid-range stuff, is that it's spectacularly uninteresting.

It's uninteresting because it's not changing much. Throughout the late 70s, 80s, and even early 90s, we were all on the rising tide that lifts all boats. Moore's law was in full swing and had dramatic impact on day to day activity. "You mean I have the memory and CPU for free, on the fly spell checking now?".

But then, PC's plateaued. They've been "fast enough" for the longest time.

Manufacturing got more sophisticated, for sure. There's still some exotic hardware to a point, but in the end, it all feels the same.

The Unix workstation market vanished, replaced with PCs running Linux or modern Macs. The server marketplace is all Linux based, unless you're into IBM. And even if you did get something like some Power gear, or even Itanium, you're still looking at a $ shell prompt, just like everything else. So, it doesn't feel different, doesn't do anything different.

Operating systems have homogenized. We've been running the same Word Processor for 20 years, the only real growth is in GPUs and video games. Interesting for some, perhaps. But most of those continue to work on modern hardware.

So, this middle range is all just gray mush. A blur.

It will vanish in the history of disinterest, since we can still do everything they did, today on current hardware. So, what's the point of sucking up all the space and taking all the time.

Apple has the new Apple Silicon hardware. Actually kind of exciting, but when all you see is MacOS, like any other Mac...it gets less interesting.

Shell prompt. Yay. I can spool up a 100 of those in the Cloud with a mouse click.
 
People in their 30s and 40s often start to have nostalgia for their youth. That's why '50s and '60s music became so popular again in the 1980s, and Disco had a comeback in the '90s. And now people in that age bracket are the ones who grew up with '90s PCs that were considered worthless e-waste not too long ago.

Good news for people like me who never threw any of it away -- bad news for people who did, or never had it to begin with, and now want to buy it.
 
But then, PC's plateaued. They've been "fast enough" for the longest time
...
Operating systems have homogenized. We've been running the same Word Processor for 20 years, the only real growth is in GPUs and video games. Interesting for some, perhaps. But most of those continue to work on modern hardware.

In terms of professional software, is it only 20 years, or is there really anything other than video and multi-track audio editing that couldn't have been done in 1989? I'm finding that the professional software of that time is extremely well-polished and, in some ways, more capable than what we have now, in terms of actually getting the work done and information communicated if it was text, numbers, and illustrations.

When you think of it that way, are the eBay prices that high, or is getting a nice vintage machine (where the seller is actually selling an excellent quality preservation or restoration at a premium) actually a bargain over today's $1000+, usually $2000+ once you upgrade a few things, new machines with bloated software, no manuals, constant updates and reboots, and no end user serviceability?
 
When you think of it that way, are the eBay prices that high, or is getting a nice vintage machine (where the seller is actually selling an excellent quality preservation or restoration at a premium) actually a bargain over today's $1000+, usually $2000+ once you upgrade a few things, new machines with bloated software, no manuals, constant updates and reboots, and no end user serviceability?

I shudder to think that some eBay asking prices I am seeing are justified. There is one that I have my eye on that is a beautiful, unique aesthetic, but I can’t justify the sale price plus shipping for what they say is sold-as-parts-only since they can’t/won’t get it working.
 
I shudder to think that some eBay asking prices I am seeing are justified. There is one that I have my eye on that is a beautiful, unique aesthetic, but I can’t justify the sale price plus shipping for what they say is sold-as-parts-only since they can’t/won’t get it working.

People sell things as for parts because they can refuse returns and refunds. Once items get into the 100's of dollars just for the parts people will buy whole machines just to swap parts out and get a refund. Also some people don't know how to test something made before Windows or don't want to fry something worth serious money (to them).

Only collectors know the difference between rare and common for specific era machines, sellers tend to find something that looks close and price it around what others are pricing things for.
 
The thing, to me, about the mid-range stuff, is that it's spectacularly uninteresting.

It's uninteresting because it's not changing much. Throughout the late 70s, 80s, and even early 90s, we were all on the rising tide that lifts all boats. Moore's law was in full swing and had dramatic impact on day to day activity. "You mean I have the memory and CPU for free, on the fly spell checking now?".

But then, PC's plateaued. They've been "fast enough" for the longest time.

Manufacturing got more sophisticated, for sure. There's still some exotic hardware to a point, but in the end, it all feels the same.....

While all of this is certainly true, I think a time machine ride back to something like 1995 or 2000 would reveal users thinking the same kind of thing - that all they were seeing coming onto the market were new versions of the same thing that could go a bit faster, do a bit more, but were largely the same as the model(s) before. The problem really is that even by then, all the new markets for the use of these systems had happened - with the possible exception of video editing and the internet.

It is what we use systems for that marks how they will be remembered, and it really isn't until the dust has settled a bit on history that it becomes a little more than merely what version of Word we had, or which flavour of Windows.

Admittedly, I am speaking as a user of vintage systems, but the reason I value them so much is that they didn't have the power or resources to support all the bloat and garbage we habitually deal with today, the always-on interfaces providing constant demands for attention. Yet, I'd bet that whatever the systems that people will be using in another 20, 30 or even 50 years, they'll look back on what we have now and be curious to know why these systems were used, and want to try them out for themselves.

Nostalgia. It'll look cool then, once people have something a lot worse than Windows 10 to contend with in their systems every day!
 
Nostalgia. It'll look cool then, once people have something a lot worse than Windows 10 to contend with in their systems every day!

Worse than Windows 10? Eww! Just Eww!
 
Some will and some won't. Look at some other hobbies for examples. There are actually more 1932 Fords on the roads today than Henry made in 1932. Which is kind of amazing when you take into account how many were collected and melted down in WWII scrap drives. How can that be? The demand for originals outpaced the supply enough to create and nurture a thriving "repop" industry.

https://brookvilleroadster.com/

Another company was doing so well restoring Ford Broncos that Ford has brought a modernized version back into production.

But I'm sorry to break to to you 1960 Mercury fans. There ain't a whole lot of love going around for the ugliest car ever made this side of France.

Bottom line? If you have an Altair or an IMSAI 8080, hang on to them. Ditto for just about anything DEC. Some things are already selling for more than they did new, and the prices are not likely to be dropping any time soon if ever.

Thats pretty interesting DDS. I have been looking at those car kits going back to the 90's and always wanted a and old Ford Pickup but here in New England they have long since rotted. I always had feelings of the kit cars and not being a true reproduction, but I had no basis for those beliefs.




People sell things as for parts because they can refuse returns and refunds. Once items get into the 100's of dollars

I am putting serious thought into changing ALL my listings to broken/as is just for the few people who don't read the listing or are trying to scam the system. I have gotten 5 of these in the past month and eBay ALWAYS sides with the buyer. I was selling some broken IIgs boards. Sold them as broken. Someone bought them I assume because they thought I didn't know how to test, they probably work or he can fix them easily and fip them. When we realized her couldn't, he opened a "Doesn't match description" case and there I am on the phone with India asking why my broken items are even allowed to have a return case opened.. And that was just one of the cases.. The rest were similar. One guy who may or may not have had mental impairments assumed one of my video adapters was an RF device even though it DOES NOT say that anywhere in the listing, eBay allowed him a return even though I have sold almost 100 of these with NEVER a single return. Thanks for F#$king up my record ebay!

So all in all I think it doesnt matter, if you are a seller on eBay your screwed.
 
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Worse than Windows 10? Eww! Just Eww!

I know!!! Hard to imagine where all this is heading.

But many of us said the same about DOS! And each new iteration of MacOS or Windows tends to make me want to go back at least a step or two!
 
each new iteration of MacOS or Windows tends to make me want to go back at least a step or two!

Enjoy that while programs still being developed continue to work on old releases.
Current releases of browsers are the worst for abandoning old machines, and of course the web keeps churning requiring the latest shiny.
 
he opened a "Doesn't match description" case and there I am on the phone with India asking why my broken items are even allowed to have a return case opened..

So all in all I think it doesn't matter, if you are a seller on eBay your screwed.

Been there, done that. I sell on eBay, and yes, as a seller you are screwed when dealing with buyers. The "Does not match description" thing is used all too often for fraudulent reasons by buyers. What's the alternative? Amazon? That sounds even worse.
 
Enjoy that while programs still being developed continue to work on old releases.
Current releases of browsers are the worst for abandoning old machines, and of course the web keeps churning requiring the latest shiny.

Speaking only for myself, I don't have a great deal of interest in software being currently developed and released because to me, this is much of the problem with current/recent computing. The drive to add features, to build out 'better' applications and OSes, just makes for unnecessary bloat and solutions that are more of the problem.

Plus, the constant nagging for updates and patches, notifications and interruptions in workflow reduce my efficiency.

It's true that if we want the latest, we have to put up with all this, but I didn't get interested in computing for any reason than that it seemed to offer useful tools to get the job done. Those self-same computers, old as they are now, still do.

They, and I, predate the internet. Of course, I do use eBay and the web as a whole, but I have systems for that which are not intended for serious work!
 
Been there, done that. I sell on eBay, and yes, as a seller you are screwed when dealing with buyers. The "Does not match description" thing is used all too often for fraudulent reasons by buyers. What's the alternative? Amazon? That sounds even worse.

There is no alternative..... eBay has the money to tie up EVERYONE in litigation so they have monopolized the market.
 
I am putting serious thought into changing ALL my listings to broken/as is just for the few people who don't read the listing or are trying to scam the system. I have gotten 5 of these in the past month and eBay ALWAYS sides with the buyer. I was selling some broken IIgs boards. Sold them as broken. Someone bought them I assume because they thought I didn't know how to test, they probably work or he can fix them easily and fip them. When we realized her couldn't, he opened a "Doesn't match description" case and there I am on the phone with India asking why my broken items are even allowed to have a return case opened.. And that was just one of the cases.. The rest were similar. One guy who may or may not have had mental impairments assumed one of my video adapters was an RF device even though it DOES NOT say that anywhere in the listing, eBay allowed him a return even though I have sold almost 100 of these with NEVER a single return. Thanks for F#$king up my record ebay!

So all in all I think it doesnt matter, if you are a seller on eBay your screwed.

I just received an ebay shipment for what was listed as a LTO-3 tape drive with a non stock picture of that exact drive and received a DLT VLS160 drive in an oversized box with 0 packing in it. So not as described is what I will go with but I emailed the seller first just to hear what he has to say.
 
There you go unknown_K. You did the right thing, maybe they are a good seller but mixed up packages (still no excuse for shitty packing but that is more common then not). I always message them first as well. The good sellers fix the problems with no need to open a claim.
 
In terms of professional software, is it only 20 years, or is there really anything other than video and multi-track audio editing that couldn't have been done in 1989?

Nonlinear video editing was still a ways off, but a professional DAW, Sonic Solutions' Sonic System, was available with 48kHz/24-bit capability in 1989. Two more years and Pro Tools hit the scene.
 
Maybe all this eBay rigamarole is why God gave us the Computer Reset Liquidation. (If you don’t know about it, start by watching LGR’s video on YouTube.)
 
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