This just makes me really SICK

From: Teo Zenios <teoz_at_neo.rr.com>
Date: Sun Jan 18 16:28:45 2004

----- Original Message -----
From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf_at_siconic.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 4:38 PM
Subject: Re: This just makes me really SICK

>The biggest problem is unqualified people who have no business quoting
>"values" creating artificially inflated expectations of sales prices,
>which causes two problems: 1) the market is flooded with Commodore 64's
>that people are asking $500 for and 2) once they realize that they aren't
>going to sell it for that much their lofty expectations are dashed and,
>disillusioned, the item goes in the trash anyway

> Must money always be a motivating factor? If I was really doing this for
> the money then I must be an idiot because I've sunk probably over $50K
> into this since I started collecting.
>
> --
>
> Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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>
Any long term hobby I have ever seen depends on hobbyists and dealers they
feed on each other. If a guy can make a few bucks on the side saving and
storing computers he will do it, this allows the collector to be able to
find people with equipment to keep his hobby going. If there wasn't a market
for corvette parts I wouldn't be able to keep mine running. I don't mind
people making a few bucks from any hobby I ever got into because without
them there is absolutely no motivation for people "not into" the hobby to
keep from throwing things out.
Any hobby goes through a phase where prices go from low to crazy levels
followed by the cashout and implosion of pricing. But what you are left with
is a stable group of collectors, reasonable prices, large amounts of
collectable material that was dug out during the boom, lots of
documentation, a set of grading outlines used by everyone, and documented
dealers who stock the stuff your looking for and you know where to find
them. Having a catalog published makes life allot easier for people just
starting out in their hobby.
You mentioned $500 c64's (assuming you meant on ebay) and how people toss
them away when they cant get that much out of them. I purchased a c64, c128
on ebay for my collection and paid maybe 30-50 for each with quite a bit of
other hardware and accessories. You can look on ebay every day and find
reasonable (meaning somebody taking the time to dig an item out, clean it,
test it as working or not, take a picture, and pay ebay its cut) prices on
these items unlike the Vintage Computer Marketplace the only 1541 disk drive
is listed for $50. Supply and demand from collectors looking at their
checkbooks on a specific day decide what is overpriced and what is a deal,
experts can only use their knowledge of the subject to give reasonable
guesses at the time of publication what something is worth and which models
are worth more then others. If items sell for more then you think they are
worth then you just don't want it as bad as somebody else does.
I have dumped a few dollars into my collection (haven't added it up don't
want to either) and have no plan on selling any of it at this time (and I
don't regret the expense either).

Received on Sun Jan 18 2004 - 16:28:45 GMT