The value of "real" Amiga hardware

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Any graphics card is "probably" better than no graphics card. My concern is the price the darn things are going for (even a crummy one... and half-a-grand for decent ones)! I could use some choice words, but anyway it will be fun to play around with. :p
 
BTW, hey @Mechy, what's your thoughts on removing that one resistor near the back outright, for using modern LCD monitors? I saw your comment a couple years ago on that thread on EAB. Thanks!

[mechy]

Any graphics card is "probably" better than no graphics card. My concern is the price the darn things are going for (even a crummy one... and half-a-grand for decent ones)! I could use some choice words, but anyway it will be fun to play around with. :p
 
BTW, hey @Mechy, what's your thoughts on removing that one resistor near the back outright, for using modern LCD monitors? I saw your comment a couple years ago on that thread on EAB. Thanks!

you can go ahead and remove that resistor, i fried the one on my pII

a few(5?) years ago softhut was selling the gvp gfx cards for $159 new i think. around the time they had new 4060dt's and such.

Remember, take care of your amiga hardware and it will likely sell for close to what you paid for it. its a good investment imho. i bought a PIV new in 1995 and used it for over 10+ years,sold it for what i paid.. i cant complain.. i shouldn't of sold it,but found another a year later :)they will likely go up in value like 060 accelerators.

[mechy]

No, they are almost identical (2MB); plus is slightly faster. 24bit is almost unusable slow (800x600 max), I kept 16bit screen if possible.

Ah,thats what it was. thanks for the correction. I wish i could remember all the stuff i used to know
i did recall 24bit was nearly un-useable on the PII.

[giZmo350]

Speaking of real world value...  SCSI Card Readers on ebay are now ridiculously priced... I see one for $220.00!!! :evil:

Mechy, are you ever going to be getting any more? Have you found a supplier yet? I really would like one for my A2000. :biglaugh:

[psxphill]

its a good investment imho. i bought a PIV new in 1995 and used it for over 10+ years,sold it for what i paid.. i cant complain..

Leaving money somewhere for 10 years and only getting back what you put in is not a good investment.
 
The inflation in the mean time has meant you're behind, you can justify it by the use you got out of it but that is hard to quantify.
 
Obviously if you bought an A2000 for a thousand dollars then selling it now is a bit of a come down. I paid £30 for my A1500 in the 90's, sold it for about £100 so I'm up on that.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Speaking of real world value...  SCSI Card Readers on ebay are now ridiculously priced... I see one for $220.00!!! :evil:

Mechy, are you ever going to be getting any more? Have you found a supplier yet? I really would like one for my A2000. :biglaugh:

I love my SCSI card readers! Got one from Mechy and then a second one off ebay after he ran out. Most of those scammers now are just slapping their own label on ones from him, after marking up 200%. Argh!  Too bad we can't figure out a way to manufacture more!

[nicholas]

ATTENTION HOARDERS!

Give all your Amiga hardware to me.

[gateres]

I have a pile of old Amiga hardware, most of it I don't care much about, perhaps you can get some of it later on from me.  The key to the survival of the Amiga for my use has been the WinUAE emulators that kick the crap out of system performance of the actual Amiga hardware.  For intensive data processing like I do, the Emulators slam the old hardware and leave it in the dust.  Since Commodore never developed a portable Amiga laptop, it was left in the dust by the PC equivalents.  The emulater allows me to have an Amiga laptop.
 
 However that said, the emulator has big trouble in replicating ports and functionality with hardware interfacing.  Takes the trusty old hardware to to do the job.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

@gateres - your hardware, your call what to do with it, but you could always post up a list here in the Marketplace section or somewhere like Amibay (both sites are free to list on, and you'd be dealing directly with members of the Amiga community). You never know, that pile of hardware that you don't care much about might contain just the parts that someone else has been searching for to make a running system. Just a thought! Thanks!

[Thorham]

For intensive data processing like I do, the Emulators slam the old hardware and leave it in the dust.

Of course, but what Amiga software are you running that requires so much speed to do? Isn't there any native peecee software that can do it too?

[rdolores]

It's the old "Supply and Demand" rule.  Over time, there will be fewer and fewer Amigas around, so lower supply.  Many of the people of my computer generation (80's and early 90's) who could only dream of such machines at the time, but couldn't afford it then, are now in a financial position to buy them.  They are the ones driving up the demand.

I was fortunate to graduate from University in 1984.  So I bought a A1000 when it came out in '85.  Commodore had a program to upgrade it to an A2000 in 1988, so I got one of those.  When my sister married in 1987, I got her an A500 as a wedding present.

About 15 years ago, I found an A2500 in a pawn shop.  I traded the guy 5 IBM PS/2 systems my old company was getting rid of for it.  The A2500 is a lot rarer than those IBM machines, so even more valuable today, especially since I did not pay anything for it.

About 5 years ago, someone on Ebay was getting rid of his A500 system for 1 penny.  He (or more likely his wife) just wanted to get some storage space back in their garage.  It's a good thing I had my van.  I thought I was getting a basic A500 (which for 1 cent was already a good deal).  Instead, I got a fully pimped-out A500 with a GVP A530 side-car (030 accelerator, 8 MB Fast RAM, and 170 MB HD), 2 MB Chip RAM upgrade, full ECS upgrade, an ICD Scan Doubler installed, a 1.3 and 2.04 ROM Switcher, a Commodore 1942 Bi-sync monitor, and loads of parts (floppy drives, Power supplies, etc...) and software (many of them boxed originals).

Then a couple years ago, my sister gave me back the A500, I gave her many years ago.

And last year, my brother gave me one of his spare A2000-based Video Toaster machines.

That's why I have quite a collection of Amigas.  I also had a large collection of vintage Macintoshes (from the time an old company of mine was getting rid of them):  Mac SE's, II CI's mostly but also some exotics like a Mac IIx, LC2, Plus, PowerBooks etc...  I gave them away years ago, when my mother sold her house to move to a smaller place which is where I was storing them.  Hated to get rid of them, but we only have so much space to store our toys.  My rec room looks like an Amiga museum.  But I'm glad I've kept them, especially seeing the value of these items rise.  I may not be rich enough to have a classic car collection, but I have a pretty cool classic Amiga collection.

I wonder what other people's opinions are on the value of classic Amiga machines.

I haven't looked at Amiga stuff on eBay for years as I sold off all of my classic hardware years ago.  I thought I'd have a look tonight to see what things were selling for these days and I was amazed.

I had 3 or 4 Blizzard PPC boards and at the time I sold them they went for about €180.  I saw one sold recently for €1200?

I sold my Blizzard 1230 Mk IV for about €70.  Now they seem to be going for €250.

I sold my BVision card for €90.  One just sold there for €350.

Used A1200's used to sell for €30 to €40 now it's around €150.

My Phase 5 CSPPC+060 board I sold for €280-ish with 128MB RAM.  I don't even know what that would be worth today, but a CSMKII with just the 060 sold for €600!

Are these prices more or less the norm these days?  I was thinking of picking up some classic hardware again but at these prices it's difficult to justify when a middle-of-the-road classic system would end up costing me the price of a new retina MacBook Pro.

How much higher can Amiga prices go?  This is 20 year old hardware and as beautiful as the machines are, they will eventually fail.  Is it wise to be investing 4 figures on this stuff?

[Tenacious]

It's the old "Supply and Demand" rule.  Over time, there will be fewer and fewer Amigas around, so lower supply.  Many of the people of my computer generation (80's and early 90's) who could only dream of such machines at the time, but couldn't afford it then, are now in a financial position to buy them.  They are the ones driving up the demand.

There were literally millions of Amigas made (I think I read 2 million A500s alone).  Most of those Amigas and peripherals were NOT collected and hoarded, they were discarded and recycled!    If I were disappointed in anyone's behavior, it's the guys who land-filled their machines and monitors when they left the platform.

@Mike
Your post #38 was noble.

[Tenacious]

For giggles, I just searched for "Amiga 500, A500, 2000, & A2000" on eBay.  It seems that there are fewer whole computers on offer compared to a few years ago.  There were various parts (chips, drives, keyboards, etc), a few accelerators, expansions, and a few 1080 series monitors.

It's amazing the difference a few days can make.  Today, I find 3 A2000s from an Austin Goodwill, all starting at $9.99 as-is.  

Perhaps things are not quite as dire as they seemed!  

EDIT:  This, by the way, is what I was talking about above:  if this Goodwill can't sell them on eBay in a given timeframe, they will likely recycle them.  Who is desperate for a big-box Amiga now?

[Iggy]

It's amazing the difference a few days can make.  Today, I find 3 A2000s from an Austin Goodwill, all starting at $9.99 as-is.  

Perhaps things are not quite as dire as they seemed!  

EDIT:  This, by the way, is what I was talking about above:  if this Goodwill can't sell them on eBay in a given timeframe, they will likely recycle them.  Who is desperate for a big-box Amiga now?

Yep, my A2000 cost under $40 about a year ago.
They are still affordable (and reliable).

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

It's amazing the difference a few days can make. Today, I find 3 A2000s from an Austin Goodwill, all starting at $9.99 as-is.

Yup, watching all those myself, LOL.  I really wonder about the backstory of some of these items?  That Goodwill store has listed severall other Amiga's recently, and also has a lot of four Vic-20's for sale now.  Oh well, probably will never know!

[Tenacious]

It does make you wonder where theses things come from.

I'd be willing to bet that listing items on eBay is not the usual Goodwill practice across the country.  God only knows how many undiscovered Amigas have disappeared into oblivion this way (A few of mine came from thrift stores.).