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C64 system value?


matthew180

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For sure, and certainly not from a store or a place where people think their stuff is worth more than it is (swap meets, etc.) But you also don't offer the price you expect to pay or you will always pay too much. The value is only what someone is willing to pay for it. For every over-priced system you see for sale, there is someone with a system in a closet somewhere that they would gladly give you just to get it out of their house, garage, business, or whatever.

 

I found a better C64 system once at a garage sale (computer, printer, dual floppy, monitor, lots of software, etc.) and paid less than $100. The guy bought it to write his dissertation back when he was in college (sometime in the 80's) and never used it again. I held on to it for a while and ended up giving it to another A.A. member.

 

I have posted want-ads in local papers before and gotten systems like IBM 5150's and lots of other old gear for very little cost. The people were just glad to get rid of it, and happy to know it was going to a home where someone appreciates the gear.

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  • 4 weeks later...

He set the price at $395 hoping someone will pay that, but it seems like he is eager to haggle down to $295. Considering this is sold at a store that needs to pay employees and rent, $295 is a fair price. You would probably pay $295 on ebay if you include shipping. The monitor probably weighs around 40 pounds, and the other stuff probably weights 30 pounds, so you could be spending $100 easy on shipping.

Edited by Hannacek
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I sold a C64 Okimate thermal printer on eBay for $100. The buyer said they were a set dresser for Modern Family. A few months later an episode aired that features a commercial from the 80's for Ed O'Neil's closet business. They bought a few printers for the episode, but ended up using a different one.

Outside someone who needs an 80's prop for their game room or TV show, there are a few collectors and users that want a printer. But printers really have no value, because no one wants them.

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Sigh... I donated a mint Okimate printer in the box to Goodwill a couple of years ago, thinking nobody would want such a thing. This makes the second time I've heard somebody recently say a television studio bought something like this as a prop. Somebody here sold their boxed 7800 to the people behind The Goldberg's, and was later used in that TV show. :)

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I believe you still can find ribbons for some models. More likely printers belong to a field where we always strived for perfection rather than preserving the original. While floppy drives used to be cruicial for the original experience and CRT's are important to get the right look, we have very little nostalgia in low resolution, pixelated, black and white faded prinouts. Also the computer doesn't "need" a printer in the same way it needs a storage device, printers are output devices entirely intended for humans.

Edited by carlsson
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What are you going to print? Birthday cards and certificates? Even something like the Gameboy camera and printer people don't want. It would be fun for a few minutes, but you would quickly get bored and realize everything you can take a picture of looks basically like the same pixelated mess.

Edited by Hannacek
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The point about the early Commodore printers is that they were terrible printers, with no descenders. Their output was just plain awful!. I used to use a Star Printer and an Epson LX 90 that looked quite good. There were even early Ink Jets with Centronics interfaces that could be used with the C-64.

But the Commodore 801 and 803 were awful.

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No value? Is it because ribbons are no longer made so the printer is useless?

 

Dot matrix printers are still manufactured, as are ribbons. Whether the ribbons manufactured today are usable in our old printers is a different story. I have a bunch of Epson ribbons for my MPS-1200 printer which I am sure have dried out by now. I could try to revive them with proper "wetting" (old txt document from Q-Link tells how to do this,) or I might be able to cram in the innards from a modern ribbon. Project for another day.

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Dot matrix printers are still manufactured, as are ribbons. Whether the ribbons manufactured today are usable in our old printers is a different story. I have a bunch of Epson ribbons for my MPS-1200 printer which I am sure have dried out by now. I could try to revive them with proper "wetting" (old txt document from Q-Link tells how to do this,) or I might be able to cram in the innards from a modern ribbon. Project for another day.

Not sure about the Commodore printers, but ribbons for the Apple ImageWriter family are still made and are quite cheap.

 

A lot of collectors still like printers over in Apple II land, they can be fun to use.

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