Whilst eBay is a popular way to find retro computers and consoles, and by far has more items than any other platform, it’s also home to some of the worst prices in the community. The fact that it’s a well-used platform and people tend to search for prices based on all items rather than items that actually sold means that if just one person sticks something on at a silly price, it doesn’t take long before that price becomes the norm.
But what are the alternatives? There are a few other, less-used platforms out there. But they either have fewer items or suffer from eBay prices.
How about live auctions? The very thing eBay is based on, the traditional method of selling old stuff. Now you can go to an auction and bid in person, but that means it has to be within travel distance of you and in the current global situation, standing in a room full of people isn’t to everybody’s taste.
Enter The Saleroom. This site acts as a proxy bidder for several auction rooms and allows you to set maximum bids on hundreds of different auctions. You can even see the auction live, in audio and (sometimes) video and bid live (although I recommend to just set the maximum and leave it at that).
The Benefits
Whilst there’s definitely evidence that the retro community is catching on to the site, there are still bargains to be had. With so many auctions happening and so many weird collections, bits do get overlooked.
The Auction lots tend to be whole collections, so unlike eBay where sellers are more likely to break items into multiple lots to try and maximise profit, if a computer came with disks or a console came with games then they’ll generally be in the same lot. Plus you’ll never see underhanded sellers taking working machines apart to try and make more profit from the parts.
Lots tend to start at a reasonable price, so if you don’t get into a fight with a wealthy collector you’ll generally get the lot at a better price (see the caveats in the risks section).
Strategy
There isn’t really anything like specialised computer/console auctions on there (at least not that I’ve seen) so retro stuff tends to be in with other items. This makes sense because a lot of these auctions are house clearances, so you’ll get ornaments, books etc and maybe the owner would have a computer/console or two.
Now, despite there not being specialised auctions, there are auction types you most want to concentrate on. General auctions tend to attract collectors, this means you’re more likely to find people who’ll spend a lot of money on retro computers and consoles. If you instead look at specialised auctions, art, ceramics and toys, then the attendees tend to be more focused on those items.
Whilst the above might seem weird for a few reasons, why would computers be with art and ceramics? Why would toy auctions be a good place? The actual reasoning is fairly simple, remember even though these are specialised auctions, they still tend to be house clearances and computers/consoles, that don’t have specialised auctions, tend to just be sold whenever.
Whilst you’d imagine toy auctions would also favour computers/consoles, they tend not to. Toy collectors are very focused on actual toys.
One thing that the saleroom does is allow you to set up alerts that will email you auction lots based on keyword searches. I’ve included the two I’ve had the most success with:
Exidy OR Exelvision OR X68000 OR Amstrad OR Atari OR "JUPITER ACE" OR "ACORN ATOM" OR COMX
Vectrex OR Entex OR "Video game" OR computer OR console OR "Neo Geo" OR Sega OR Nintendo OR Atari OR Taito OR Capcom OR Poqet NOT Tablethese also give you a good idea of what I’ve been searching for in the past. Now obviously you will get some false positives, you can tune these out to a degree (you can see I’ve added NOT Table to try and limit the list of Console Tables) but you want it to be a little loose to catch some of the mis-worded auctions.
Risks
Here’s the downsides, and there are some important ones. Make sure you read the lot carefully. Auction houses add VAT and hammer tax to sales. So make sure you work out what the combination is and then set your maximum based on it.
Delivery is still a little odd, it’s got better, especially over the pandemic, but things aren’t perfect still. It’s obviously far better if you can go and collect lots, then you have no more expenses. But if that isn’t possible then you need check the delivery tab on the lot page before you do anything.
If there’s a set price in the tab then you’re good to go. Auction houses with in-house packing seem to be fairly reasonable with costs. Plus they’re used to packing very expensive items and (in my experience) do a good job.
If the tab says you need to contact a packing firm, or they have a POA message then this means you’ll need to use something like Mailboxes etc. These middleman services will go to the auction house, pack the item and then ship it to you.
The main issue with these services is that they tend to be anywhere between a 1/3rd extra to double the price of the parcel force service they send with. This is to cover their costs of getting and packing the item and, of course, some profit for them.
Again, make sure you factor that price into your maximum bid.
The last issue is that these lots tend to come from house clearances, nothing will be tested except for power supplies which might be PAT tested. Plus it might well be missing items, the people collecting the lots are not necessarily going to understand what they’re putting together. And these lots might well have been sitting in, first, a loft for many many years and then someone’s warehouse whilst waiting to be collected and sold.
Summary
Live auctions are still a fairly good way to get retro items for a decent price, but you do need to read the lot page carefully and scrutinise any images to make sure you’re bidding within your limit and actually getting everything you expect.