Selling my Commodore stuff

General
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I’m planning on moving soon and probably will be putting my Commodore hardware/software on Ebay or something similar. I don’t want to drag it with me through yet another move, but it’d be nice if it goes to a good home. Anyone have any input on what the following might be worth? I want to sell it as a single lot as I don’t want to fiddle with a bunch of auctions.

Commodore C64 - all cables and power supply
Commodore Vic-20 - all cables and power supply (with box)
Commodore 1702 Monitor
Commodore 1541 disk drive
Commodore C2N Cassette drive
Commodore VicModem, 300 baud
Commodore 1520 color plotter
Tech Sketch Lightpen
Okimate 10 color thermal printer

A stack of books including Commodore 64 User’s Guide, Vic-20 Programmer’s Reference Guide, Vic Games, Vic Graphics, Vic Revealed, Stimulating Simulations for the Vic, Your Commodore 64, Vic-20 A friendly computer guide, Games for your Vic-20, and other assorted game and hardware manuals. I still have the programming manual to a Voice Messenger voice synthesizer, but unfortunately I lost the hardware module years ago.

A few game cartridges:
Star Trek
Pin Ball
Avenger
Pirate Cove
Voodoo Castle
Adventure Land
The Count

A small box of floppy disks, mostly copied games, although there are a few originals - Archon II, Infocom’s Deadline, and Codewriter’s Alvin the Android series. Somewhere I know I had a second box of disks with more games including CodeWriter’s AdventureWriter, Flight Simulator II, and others, but I haven’t found it yet.

Last I tried, everything worked with the exception of the two printers and the modem, all of which I have not tested since the 80’s

Any and all advice is welcome.

2

When was “last I tried” exactly? We tend to think of electronics as inert when off, unlikely to suffer damage, but batteries and capacitors tend to explode after decades. You will want to open the devices up and make sure there’s no corrosion.

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The computers, monitor, disk drive, game carts, and some disks were tried a few months ago. The tape drive and lightpen last year. The printers and modem, as I said, an eternity. I wouldn’t expect the printers to work. The modem might, but I don’t have a landline to even test it.

Edit: I just hooked up the C64, the monitor, and the disk drive and loaded up Elite. I also tested the Star Trek cart. Everything worked fine.

I’m going to try the Vic-20, but I’m not sure if I have the right cable to hook it to the monitor. I don’t have a TV that has the right connection any longer.

I also forgot to add: I have an Epyx 500XJ joystick which, among the Atari compatible joysticks, was always my favorite. Also while digging through the cables, I found an X-1541 cable I made many years ago. I forgot that thing even existed. It wasn’t the best made cable, for sure, but you’d need a PC with a parallel port to even test it. LOL.

4

A buyer would want to know if these are PAL or NTSC machines (or even SECAM). You don’t mention where in the world you’re located, but that would affect the costs and risks of shipping—of the monitor, in particular.

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Here’s an interesting site I found recently: http://www.amibay.com

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The machines are NTSC. I am in the U.S.

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I found an RF-coax adapter I used to test my Atari VCS recently and hooked the Vic-20 to it. It boots up but the screen is horrible. I’m pretty sure this is an adapter/cable/tv issue as I had similarly poor results with my Atari. As it is, I can make out the boot up screen and it responds to typed characters, but is so close to unreadable as to prevent proper testing.

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I found the proper cable for connecting the Vic to the 1702. I couldn’t remember how to hook it up (and I remember that you can fry things if you use the wrong color plug), so I used a multimeter to figure it out.

Once I got the connection sorted, the screen looked fine. It took a few tries to get the various carts to work, no doubt due to age and dust, but they did all work. Graphics and sound were fine. The only thing I noticed was the delete key seemed a little finicky, but other than that I’d say it is fully working.

9

Even if you’re in a remote area you’ll find people willing to drive a pretty significant distance to pick up that kind of haul. Take some decent pictures, put up a post on your nearest Craiglist region, and let people make offers for a week or two for the lot, then accept the one you’re happiest with.

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Thanks. I live in SW Ohio.

I’ve never used Craigslist. Do you list it as “best offer” and can you decide not to sell it if none of the offers are good?

I’m used to dealing with ebay and paypal. Does Craigslist have something similar, i.e. how do you handle payment without getting ripped off?

I’m not looking to make a bunch of money off this, but I’d like it to go to someone who actually wants it and not someone who is looking to pick stuff up on the cheap and then re-list it next week.

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Craigslist is just an evolution of old-school newspaper classifieds. There is no transaction enforcement or security, it’s a platform to connect buyers and sellers who hopefully meet and have an agreeable transaction. There’s some degree of protection in the early going (they provide anonymized email addresses) but eventually you have to hold your breath and make an arrangement with somebody. So yes you can list something and then not decide to sell it at all, but if you do sell it, you’re responsible for making sure you don’t accept a bag of broken glass in lieu of cash.

As far as the balance between “top dollar” and “good home”, I do know some serious C= enthusiasts in that region who would use the stuff rather than flipping it. Check your inbox in a minute…

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Thanks, I just replied.

Also some good news - I found the second box of floppies I was looking for. Again, lots of copied games and stuff, but also some originals:

Infocom’s The Lurking Horror
Gauntlet II
Codewriter’s AdventureWriter
Codewriter’s The Thriller Series
Ultima V (4 disks)
Tech Sketch Micro Illustrator program (drawing software for the lightpen)
Flight Simulator II
AD&D Secret of the Silver Blades (3 disks)
Space Rogue (one of my favorite games on C64. I still have one of the fold up cardboard spaceships that come with the game. I have a story about this game and how I once met Warren Spector back when he was working at Origin)

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Dang, I just remembered there’s at least one original game which I know I have, but it isn’t in either box - Gunship. Now I’m thinking I have a third box somewhere, but I have no clue where it might be.