There Outta' Be A Bluebook Written on Computer Hardware.... FOR EBAY!

[Mad-Mike]

Is it just me, or have prices on vintage IBM Compatible stuff (486 on down) been getting ridiculous on E-bay as of late. Who the heck is buying a 486 motherboard for $45.00? I just bid on an XT board and got edged out $10.50, not the cheapest thing around is at least $50-60, argghhhhhhhh! Of course, it's my fault since I did not watch the auction till the end.

I mean, $268.00 for a 286, gimmie a break, how about I put my GEM 286 up for $6000, and advertise that "it's the only computer that can run a Zip drive in this class". Jebus, stupid people annoy the **** out of me. One thing I miss since moving is having that store down the street with all the old parts, I'd come in, new 486 board, $5.00. Now I'm lucky to even see a Pentium III!

So now I have a vacant case, no board to put in it, a 30 pin blue lightning mobo with a bad memory slot that I'm trying to replace, and all these people on E-gay are trying to hump prices up into the stratosphere. If this is how cheap this hobby is going to be, I might as well quit where I'm at, and start collecting guitars heavily again, because that's becoming about as cheap, why pay $640 for an XT clone when I can get a Fender Jazzmaster for the same amount of money! The only good thing is I got a Pentium III 1GHz CPU for $12.00....wow, I have to pay over $100 for a motherboard for a computer that only runs pre-useful versions of M$ windoze, yet I can get a fairly recent CPU and motherboard on the dirt cheap....wow, I'd better hold onto the stuff I have, because I might get dirty filthy stinkin' rich off it someday if E-bay keeps going this way..

Any other good places to look for an XT board for the system I'm rebuilding? Because I'm at a loss. ABC'll charge me 10X as much as E-pay will. It's aggrivating that's for sure.

[Terry Yager]

I've got a couple of 64 - 256K XT boards I'll send ya for shipping cost. They're just gathering dust here. Both were pulled when upgrading to 640K boards. Pm me if ya want 'em..

--T

[dpatten]

The reason that a lot of Vintage computer Items are costing so much on Ebay is simple. Shill bidding. Sellers bid their own stuff up. Ebay is complicit because they end up collecting their sale fees on a shill bid Item unless the crooked seller files a non-paying bidder complaint on their shill bid ID to get a refund, which is pretty unlikely.

Continue watching the seller after the Item sells. In my experience they are selling an 2dentical vintage Item within 2 weeks about 50% of the time. Ebay of course, never busts any of the sellers when you complain. I mean its theoretically possible that there were duplicates.

[Unknown_K]

I don't think there is that much shilling going on, in the end somebody is buying the stuff and paying what it is worth to them.

The fact is all those 486 boards and slower are getting rare as most have been recycled a long time ago. People who want specific brands and model numbers will pay more then somebody who doesn't care, so these buyers head to ebay because that is the only game in town.

You people also have to remember that just because you have stacks of a specific era of parts in your basement doesn't mean everybody does. I have quite a few high end VLB cards, go try finding them today outside of ebay or another collector.

As allways if you are patient and like digging around you can find anything you want at below market rates.

[atari2600a]

^^^True!

I once found an Atari 800 Power Supply at a flea market for $2! (Coincidentally after I bought my 800 from eBay w/o one! More info at my Website!)

[alexkerhead]

I have personally never had any problems on ebay(yet, knocks on wood)
The key is too make sure the seller is legit, any rating under 96%@200+ items is BAD, 8 items having issues in 200 is really bad.. Try and only use sellers with 100% feedback with lots of sold items for expensive stuff.
Cheap stuff it dont matter, people wont go to great lengths to rip someone off for a $5 item.

[atari2600a]

^^^Really True!

I once bought a Broken PS2 (Knowing it was broken), & the seller claimed to have never opened up the unit. When I got the thing, It was missing 1/3 of the screws, part of the laser, & a fuse & resistor off the PSU! Also, all the ribbon cables inside where pulled out! The worst part is, It wasn't my money! (I still owe my little brother $37...)

[alexkerhead]

Why would you pay $37 for a broke ps2 when you can get one that works for $70?

[atari2600a]

Why pay an extra $32 bucks when you could just buy a broken one & fix it? :p

[alexkerhead]

Why pay an extra $32 bucks when you could just buy a broken one & fix it? :p
lol Bad idea