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Here's a little guide to selling vintage computer equipment, i've split this up into hardware and software to make it easy for you all.
HARDWARE
RARE ! - Avoid (at whatever cost!) the word RARE in listings, Elvis's boxer shorts may be 'rare' , a t-bone steak may be 'rare' and its the most over-rated and over used word guaranteed to turn bidders away. If I see a listing with big words RARE AND VINTAGE COMPUTER ..
I switch off and move on by, without a second glance! By all means used the word vintage, old, 1980's , 1970's etc but stay away from rare, unless you've found a working copy of a Mark I Enigma machine in Granddad's loft (in which case you'll get a six figure sum for it!) then use common sense and don't dress 'mutton up as lamb' as the saying goes.
Condition - The most important thing is to be HONEST, don't bluff your way with 'was working last time i used it' which actually means in 1988 when it went up into the loft or down the cellar is WAS working. If you can TEST it, fire it up, tune to UHF 36 on a portable TV, plug in and have a look, if it fires up without problem, give it a soak test of 24 hours, to determine whether if heated up anything fails - as components do over the years. if you don't have an RF (TV) lead for it ebay for one, don't sell it as untested when for the sake of 1.99 you could in fact add 20-40 quid to a bidding frenzy for a working computer i..e a ZX80, a working ZX80 will fetch upwards of 100.00 plus but a 'sold as seen' one a few quid. It really is your call.
If its been kept in the poly's (polystyrene casing) and the original box, state as much, let's see some pictures, if its been in a dry loft, mildew mould, cobwebs and mushrooms are not what you'd expect to find on the outer casing! If it's been stored in less than ideal conditions, again, be honest with people, Most if not all ebayers - like me, appreciate honesty in a listing, you won't be considered thick if you don't know how to program it or work a disk drive to get a 5 1/4" floppy formatted - leave that to the collector, but collectors want an honest appraisal in less than 100 words of what they're getting. If possible do a top, side and bottom picture gallery, then the bits that goes with it and if possible a picture of it all hooked up to a TV. Remember that if the auction looks good, the bids will follow, you do want TIP TOP bids , don't you?
If it gurgles like a toddler, flickers then shuts down when you fire it up, ok, may be a dry joint, may just not like having volts thrust through it after a 20 year sleep, whatever the reason, its a 'sold as seen - spare or repairs' and NOTHING ELSE. If anyone sold me a vintage comp as fully working and it was dead on arrival, sorry, but an immediate and worthy negative will follow AND a follow up to it.
Be reasonable when you use the word working, working means that you can do things with it, not just look at the screen rolling up and down due to a faulty bit of kit inside. And working should suggest that when you dragged it from the loft THAT was when you found it to be 'working' ... don't lie, you'll get found out and earn a red star for it !
Check that it has ;-
ALL THE CASING SCREWS - ORIGINAL IF POSSIBLE
THE CASE IS COMPLETE AND NOT CRACKED - If it is cracked and dented - mention it.
THE SPEAKER BLEEPS - NOT BLEEPS AND FADES AWAY
A TV (CALLED AN RF) LEAD FOR A PORTABLE TV
IF IT HAS RUBBER FEET THEY'RE ALL LEVEL AND IF NOT GET SOME SUPERGLUE !
If you've had the hood up in the past and have done custom 'chip shop' jobs to it, STATE so, so that people know, a little upgrade is a nice surprise, seeing that a cack handed 12 year old let loose with a soldering iron and an industrial screwdriver has butchered the main board is 'not a nice surprise'.
Manuals are an added bonus, if you have them list them, let someone else rekindle a lost childhood of many, many hours in front of the TV playing Pacman or Repton. Old home computers are easy to program in BASIC and with some applied know how assembly language.
Keyboard templates and magazine all add to the look of the win, so unless you have to (or want to!) try and keep everything as a job lot, create some interest in it, let people see they're getting a great, notjust a mediocre or poor offering for their hard earned bidding.
SOFTWARE
Notoriously tempermental. Disks usually wear the years a little (but not much) better even if kept in dry, cool conditions like a box in the loft. Tapes will usually run on a good tape recorder that has had the heads cleaned with an alcohol wipe and a bit of WD40 on the spindles where the tape spool sits ( do NOT clean heads with WD40 - EVER!)
If you can test tapes and disks, have a go, if not, then again 'sold as seen - untested'. Could be the difference to a LOT of money, for example the Acornsoft Elite on disk will fetch 40-60 quid in good condition with the keyboard overlay, manual and books, plus a well kept outer box, if you can test it and show it's working then great, if not, be realistic, people won't splash the cash on a gamble that it 'may' work, you'll only get a few quid for untested disks and less for tapes, so don't expct silly money.
PSU's
Power supplies, things have moved on since the days of the BBC, C64 and Spectrum, if you sell a power supply make DOUBLE sure it has a PLUG and a FUSE on it, if not, get one, don't see stuff that has the potential to KILL. That said it doesn't mean you need to have it all rubber stamped and tested by a PAT electrician but in good working order is the defacto standard, send it to the new owner how YOU would want it recieved, i.e. plug and go, not find a plug and screwdriver then go !
ADD-ON Cards - External and Internal
Again, unless you've pulled a system from working, sell as sold as seen and untested, and if you do state tested and WORKING, make sure the year of test is 2008 and not 1988 !! DON'T FORGET to obeserve static precautions when handling cards and especially if you're shipping them in the post, no amount of packaging can be 'too little' for such items, given Royal Mail's colourful history on losing and breaking stuff to total destruction in it's mail hubs.
And after the winning bids are in , drum roll please !!!!
PACKING - Vintage retro stuff rarely like being man-handled in transitm if you can avoid a courier then great, let people pick the stuff up, and at least go halfway to packing it up for them. See my other guide on shipping and collections in general.
I have plenty of experience both programming, and as a collector of BBC stuff Vintage PC's so I know what sellers and buyer want. If you found thins guide helpful please vote for it, if you want advice and help on vintage stuff, just pop me a message, glad to help.
Lastly
PRICE
99p starting bids win every time, ok, if you have to do a reserve, make sure you know what you're doing and that there is a justified reason. TRY if possible to avoid a private auction, sometimes if you have low feedbacks people will question why. I saw this once on some garden furniture .. what on earth !!!
Again, using rare with a massive buy it now price is a sure fire way to kill any and all interest in your retro item, only today i did a search for a Compaq portable, i got one some time ago for 4 quid (yep four pounds!) the one I've just found is a buy-it-now for just under 300 notes ... you'd have to be bloody mad or stupid to pay that sort of money, some people unfortunately aquaint the word old, rare with lets rip the punter off. It rarely works, and in all honesty for 300 notes i'd want the bugger gold plated and a diamond encrusted keyboard. Pimp my PC anyone?!!!
Updated May 2008
HARDWARE
RARE ! - Avoid (at whatever cost!) the word RARE in listings, Elvis's boxer shorts may be 'rare' , a t-bone steak may be 'rare' and its the most over-rated and over used word guaranteed to turn bidders away. If I see a listing with big words RARE AND VINTAGE COMPUTER ..
I switch off and move on by, without a second glance! By all means used the word vintage, old, 1980's , 1970's etc but stay away from rare, unless you've found a working copy of a Mark I Enigma machine in Granddad's loft (in which case you'll get a six figure sum for it!) then use common sense and don't dress 'mutton up as lamb' as the saying goes.
Condition - The most important thing is to be HONEST, don't bluff your way with 'was working last time i used it' which actually means in 1988 when it went up into the loft or down the cellar is WAS working. If you can TEST it, fire it up, tune to UHF 36 on a portable TV, plug in and have a look, if it fires up without problem, give it a soak test of 24 hours, to determine whether if heated up anything fails - as components do over the years. if you don't have an RF (TV) lead for it ebay for one, don't sell it as untested when for the sake of 1.99 you could in fact add 20-40 quid to a bidding frenzy for a working computer i..e a ZX80, a working ZX80 will fetch upwards of 100.00 plus but a 'sold as seen' one a few quid. It really is your call.
If its been kept in the poly's (polystyrene casing) and the original box, state as much, let's see some pictures, if its been in a dry loft, mildew mould, cobwebs and mushrooms are not what you'd expect to find on the outer casing! If it's been stored in less than ideal conditions, again, be honest with people, Most if not all ebayers - like me, appreciate honesty in a listing, you won't be considered thick if you don't know how to program it or work a disk drive to get a 5 1/4" floppy formatted - leave that to the collector, but collectors want an honest appraisal in less than 100 words of what they're getting. If possible do a top, side and bottom picture gallery, then the bits that goes with it and if possible a picture of it all hooked up to a TV. Remember that if the auction looks good, the bids will follow, you do want TIP TOP bids , don't you?
If it gurgles like a toddler, flickers then shuts down when you fire it up, ok, may be a dry joint, may just not like having volts thrust through it after a 20 year sleep, whatever the reason, its a 'sold as seen - spare or repairs' and NOTHING ELSE. If anyone sold me a vintage comp as fully working and it was dead on arrival, sorry, but an immediate and worthy negative will follow AND a follow up to it.
Be reasonable when you use the word working, working means that you can do things with it, not just look at the screen rolling up and down due to a faulty bit of kit inside. And working should suggest that when you dragged it from the loft THAT was when you found it to be 'working' ... don't lie, you'll get found out and earn a red star for it !
Check that it has ;-
ALL THE CASING SCREWS - ORIGINAL IF POSSIBLE
THE CASE IS COMPLETE AND NOT CRACKED - If it is cracked and dented - mention it.
THE SPEAKER BLEEPS - NOT BLEEPS AND FADES AWAY
A TV (CALLED AN RF) LEAD FOR A PORTABLE TV
IF IT HAS RUBBER FEET THEY'RE ALL LEVEL AND IF NOT GET SOME SUPERGLUE !
If you've had the hood up in the past and have done custom 'chip shop' jobs to it, STATE so, so that people know, a little upgrade is a nice surprise, seeing that a cack handed 12 year old let loose with a soldering iron and an industrial screwdriver has butchered the main board is 'not a nice surprise'.
Manuals are an added bonus, if you have them list them, let someone else rekindle a lost childhood of many, many hours in front of the TV playing Pacman or Repton. Old home computers are easy to program in BASIC and with some applied know how assembly language.
Keyboard templates and magazine all add to the look of the win, so unless you have to (or want to!) try and keep everything as a job lot, create some interest in it, let people see they're getting a great, notjust a mediocre or poor offering for their hard earned bidding.
SOFTWARE
Notoriously tempermental. Disks usually wear the years a little (but not much) better even if kept in dry, cool conditions like a box in the loft. Tapes will usually run on a good tape recorder that has had the heads cleaned with an alcohol wipe and a bit of WD40 on the spindles where the tape spool sits ( do NOT clean heads with WD40 - EVER!)
If you can test tapes and disks, have a go, if not, then again 'sold as seen - untested'. Could be the difference to a LOT of money, for example the Acornsoft Elite on disk will fetch 40-60 quid in good condition with the keyboard overlay, manual and books, plus a well kept outer box, if you can test it and show it's working then great, if not, be realistic, people won't splash the cash on a gamble that it 'may' work, you'll only get a few quid for untested disks and less for tapes, so don't expct silly money.
PSU's
Power supplies, things have moved on since the days of the BBC, C64 and Spectrum, if you sell a power supply make DOUBLE sure it has a PLUG and a FUSE on it, if not, get one, don't see stuff that has the potential to KILL. That said it doesn't mean you need to have it all rubber stamped and tested by a PAT electrician but in good working order is the defacto standard, send it to the new owner how YOU would want it recieved, i.e. plug and go, not find a plug and screwdriver then go !
ADD-ON Cards - External and Internal
Again, unless you've pulled a system from working, sell as sold as seen and untested, and if you do state tested and WORKING, make sure the year of test is 2008 and not 1988 !! DON'T FORGET to obeserve static precautions when handling cards and especially if you're shipping them in the post, no amount of packaging can be 'too little' for such items, given Royal Mail's colourful history on losing and breaking stuff to total destruction in it's mail hubs.
And after the winning bids are in , drum roll please !!!!
PACKING - Vintage retro stuff rarely like being man-handled in transitm if you can avoid a courier then great, let people pick the stuff up, and at least go halfway to packing it up for them. See my other guide on shipping and collections in general.
I have plenty of experience both programming, and as a collector of BBC stuff Vintage PC's so I know what sellers and buyer want. If you found thins guide helpful please vote for it, if you want advice and help on vintage stuff, just pop me a message, glad to help.
Lastly
PRICE
99p starting bids win every time, ok, if you have to do a reserve, make sure you know what you're doing and that there is a justified reason. TRY if possible to avoid a private auction, sometimes if you have low feedbacks people will question why. I saw this once on some garden furniture .. what on earth !!!
Again, using rare with a massive buy it now price is a sure fire way to kill any and all interest in your retro item, only today i did a search for a Compaq portable, i got one some time ago for 4 quid (yep four pounds!) the one I've just found is a buy-it-now for just under 300 notes ... you'd have to be bloody mad or stupid to pay that sort of money, some people unfortunately aquaint the word old, rare with lets rip the punter off. It rarely works, and in all honesty for 300 notes i'd want the bugger gold plated and a diamond encrusted keyboard. Pimp my PC anyone?!!!
Updated May 2008
Guide created: 05/05/08 (updated 21/08/08)
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