Collecting Machines for Fun and Profit?

[DaveZ]

Very interested to hear what people think of collecting Amigas and older Commodores as a possible investment.

I have been buying, repairing, and reselling Commodore and other equipment and currently have some of the nicest pieces in my own collection, including several Amiga 500s and Commodore 128s, all with a number of mods, peripherals, spare parts, etc. I've been having a really hard time letting these last items go and I'm trying my hardest not to accumulate more.

Should I just let these items go (except for one or two), or is it worth holding on for future sale when the market improves?

I'd like to say it's all investment, but each machine has its pros and cons and perhaps I'm being too emotional, especially with all the work to either bring these machines back to new as possible condition or making numerous modifications.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

--Dave

 

[User4703]

Hi kids, have you ever seen an addicted mind before? It acts in ways that its owner cannot readily fathom and as he scrambles to accept the reality that it creates for him he will try rationalizing his behaviour in any way that he can in order to make himself seem like the victor and not victim of his affliction. Would you like to see an example of one deep in the thrones of such a process? Sure, here we go:

Very interested to hear what people think of collecting Amigas and older Commodores as a possible investment.

I have been buying, repairing, and reselling Commodore and other equipment and currently have some of the nicest pieces in my own collection, including several Amiga 500s and Commodore 128s, all with a number of mods, peripherals, spare parts, etc. I've been having a really hard time letting these last items go and I'm trying my hardest not to accumulate more.

Should I just let these items go (except for one or two), or is it worth holding on for future sale when the market improves?

I'd like to say it's all investment, but each machine has its pros and cons and perhaps I'm being too emotional, especially with all the work to either bring these machines back to new as possible condition or making numerous modifications.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

--Dave

Just kidding Dave although maybe I'm not. This is a disease and amibay is like a digital crack den in which junkies of all forms, some are high functioning and labour very hard to keep up appearances of being a "regular human" whereas others are just randomly floating upon a horde of 8 and 16 bit wonder as they reminisce of Agnes and Denise like it was their first threesome and then there are those at some point in between. Rest assured they are all addicts. The first step comes with having the courage to admit it. Or ignore it and acquire more hardware, forget buying land, gold or ISAs - Amigas are where its at, they are sure to represent an appreciating asset and something your seeds will no doubt appreciate when you bequeath it to them as an inheritance as the world whizzes by on hoverboards and always on connections...

 

[Sardine]

for me its practical use, I dont care what they are worth as long as myself and my kids enjoy them.


it's just nice to know if I wanted to I could sell my collection later on for what I paid for them.


Amibay is not for profiteering, if you want as much as possible for your items then I suggest possibly auction sites.

I'm a bit like James May in the fact I would do the same as he did, Buy a sealed nos item and to everyone's horror rip open discarding the packaging to use the item

 

[DaveZ]

Amibay is not for profiteering, if you want as much as possible for your items then I suggest possibly auction sites.

Thanks so much, and I certainly don't want to violate Amibay's policies. I am hoping that profit is not seen the same profiteering. I generally buy broken and battered machines and restore them, and have sold them for reasonable prices with only good feedback. This is not so much a commercial venture for me, but mostly a way to fund my hobby. Just wanted to be clear on that.

 

[Sardine]

^^

yes many other do that here at Amibay and we encourage the "rescue" of machines. the more the better.

we just frown at buying cheap, wipe with a cloth and sell for high. or worse buy here and then sell on eBay.

 

[demolition]

I doubt it is a good investment to buy retro gear only to store it and sell it again many years later. A few items might appreciate greatly in value, but generally that would not be the case. If you do the calculation about what you pay for the storage space, you need a decent appreciation just to cover that. And no, storage space if never free even if you just use the back of your sock drawer. You also have to consider that even if you store stuff nicely, some of it will still be broken by the time you pull it out to sell it, causing a further loss. It is unavoidable. Then you need to spend time and parts to fix it which is also not free.

My suggestion is to just store stuff that you might like to use yourself in some way (actual use, spare parts or only for display etc.) and move most of the other stuff out to someone else who might be looking for that particular item.
I know how it can be hard to sell off your stuff since I never really sold any of my machines either. I did however give away a couple of C64s, some Amiga stuff and other items for free to people who needed them. I have quite a few C64s, but most of them were dead and repaired by me and I don't collect for monetary reasons but because I enjoy seeing stuff come back to life. Then when it works, it is no longer interesting and is put in storage until I find a use for them.

I have thought about putting together some system packages and selling it off as I have more than I need, but the work involved in putting it together, taking pics etc. is boring so I never get around to actually doing it.

I don't really blame sellers for trying to get as much as possible for their stuff even if they just bought something cheap and gave it a quick clean to sell it on, however I do blame the buyers who accept to pay a premium just because they are too lazy to clean it off themselves.