Community Newsletter: Q&A forum: How can I determine the market value of my older electronics?

The question is, how do you determine the value of older electronics? If you put something that's selling on eBay for $100, on sale for $10, and somebody immediately snaps it up--does that mean it's worth $10?

No! It means that you probably sold it too cheaply.

You can always find someone willing to pay bottom dollar, but that's not in your best interest.

Drop malfunctioning object in swimming pool or lake.

If it floats, there's a chance. If it doesn't, try to retrieve the hard drive. If able, keep hard drive and Google "expert HD retrieval companies;" If not able, discard all, take deap breathe and start over. UNLESS you have backup. If so, go buy new equipment (which you have to do anyway) and restore as much as possible.

Kinda like they used to do with witches in Salem.

I guess the determining factor to be whether it still works, just sort of or is dead. I'm still holding unto a 1980 HP O'scope. Just needs the power supply voltage regulator replaced and it was worth 40 grand new. I donate all things electronic, crt displays and Tvs, printers, scanners, modems and obsolete desktops after needed parts like drives and interface cables have been removed. That could be a tax deduction or just a warm spot having helped out non-profits holding E-waste drives. Some municipalities dictate what you can put in your trash and how to handle household hazardous wastes, precluding tossing it out or using as a boat anchor.

There are several approaches that can be used:

a] Accountants Depreciation - How long is the item suppposed to last - This together with your accountant's depreciation formula might help establish a value which you might get for it ...

Of course your computer gadgets might last longer than the depreciation value.

b] Syupply and demand - Your item may have a higher value because they are higher in demand because the copmpany only made100,000 and a 500, 000 people want to buy that same item ...

C] Inflation and other factors play a role in this as well.

That said I need to point something out. Laptops, computers and phones have memory of one kind or another. Old computers have hard drives, phones have memory and sometimes memory chips, by no means give those away.

Hard drives should be wiped by someone that knows how (don't rely on those free wipe programs unless you know for a fact they actually work). If you can't be sure you can wipe a drive a 5lb sledge hammer will do the trick. You have personal information on your hard drive that will remain even if you reformat it.

Cell phones have personal info on them as well, old SIM chips if you have a GSM phone should be destroyed. Remove any memory chips, you can reuse them. Resetting a phone to "Factory" sometimes removes the old information but not always. If someone tells you otherwise remember this story, when the second generation of iPhone came out Apple was selling refurbished iPhones after "wiping" them. Turns out that many of the phones still had personal data on them. The moral is, if the manufacturer isn't always sure how can you be.

I don't know if this post is a little too old to reply to, but I'd like to put my two cents in. I'd like to point out that E-bay is an auction site. You really don't need to know what your item is worth at all. Yes, you can just sell things for a specific price, but you might get your best results doing what I do:

When you sell something, put it up for auction starting at one dollar (or one cent if it's an inexpensive item). Do this with no minimum / no reserve. This will help ensure that your item gets attention. Add a small amount for shipping, listed separately, just enough to cover the actual shipping costs. If your item is worth anything, it will quickly bid up to a reasonable price. If it just sells for a dollar, then you can feel good knowing your item at least went to someone who will get some more use out of it. If it doesn't sell at all, then it probably wasn't worth anything to begin with. You could try again. or just chuck it if it can't be donated.

I had an old Radio Shack Color Computer with two 5-1/4" floppy drives, a ton of software, and a lot of extras. I was hoping to get $5 or $10 for it for sentimental reasons. Ends up, a last-minute bidding war brought the price up to $150. Hey, you never know.

Haha, museum piece? I don't think so. I knew just what I had and what it was worth. They were (and still are) ubiquitous. Come on, the topic is disposing of one's old electronics; keeping 5 year old cell phones, old dvd players, and non-vintage CRT TVs out of the landfills, not ransacking your grandmother's china cabinet.

I tell you that I would have paid a lot more for a real TRS-80. There are not many around. What makes you think that starting at $1 the bid will actually go to the real market value? You're talking about eBay now, not Christies. Most people will not buy the old equipment even if they had to only pay for shipping. Then there would be questions: Does it come with Windows? What version? I'm not saying that eBay isn't a good source for information but most people on there are looking for bargains and, if you don't think your equipment should be considered a bargain. You may be ASSUMING that, at an auction the bid will rack up to the fair market price. Not necessarily so. In your case, you knew (or think you knew) what an old, old computer was worth. Very few people will actually be able to use a TRS-80 for anything much these days. So, in that sense, it may have only been worth what you got for it. But, what about as a tax write-off? How about it being an electronic antique? If you don't really know what's out there you never really know what it is really worth. I have an electric train set that is from the 1950s. Want to guess what the engine is worth now? A lot of people who are looking for a toy for their very young children may just assume it is in the range of $100 to $200. Without actually showing it to someone, the engine could go to an entusiast for a few thousand. I think it depends on the audience. Just my opinion, anyway.