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miss the early days

Discussion in 'Chat Area' started by 19lexicon78, Nov 17, 2017.

  1. 19lexicon78

    19lexicon78 Active Member

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    i miss the days, i was the only one in the netherlands/belgium/germany looking for walkman. i miss the days i could have dc2, dd9 for 25 euro. i miss the days only a handfull knew. it's the same with classical racing bikes and it's campa groups. also classical audio. it's over. it's done. perhaps also for all the other collectables. internet is a wonderful thing to learn, but also there isn't anything exclusive anymore.
    as someone who's a 16 year walkman/discman freak, i miss those early days.
    perhaps time for a new hobby
     
  2. Radio Raheem

    Radio Raheem Well-Known Member

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    Totally agree...now it's cheaper to buy drugs, it's not fair for those genuinely interested in boomboxes/walkmans...now it's crazy money just for cheap rubbish
     
  3. Mister X

    Mister X Moderator Staff Member

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    While some of the pricing stinks, I kind of like it. For years my friends said I was wasting my time with my stuff, records weren't coming back, tape players were dumb and MP3s were the future. I've had a pretty good eye for things that are valuable, I can watch most pickin/auction shows and pretty much nail the price they will ask, so I started really looking in the mid-90s. and slowly building my collection. I'm still buying things but when I find them I know there's a much higher value to them then ever before. The other downside is people are bringing out a lot of the mass-produced crap and thinking it's the cream of the crop, my last buy of the Hitachi and Technics was an example, the guy had a Sanyo Egg that he said was the best of the bunch, I would have only grabbed it if it was free.

    One of the reason I like collecting audio equipment is that I also use it. I've got so many Frankenstein Systems and it's cool to mess around with it, especially cranking something after fixing it. Some of the other things I have, I'm a little too old to play with but they look good on the shelf.
     
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  4. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    @Mister X said it better than I could have, it feels good that my son no longer looks at my LP12/LX-3 with a smirk of someone listening to the awesomeness of latest iPhone. No envy (yet) but the air of quiet superiority is gone!
    :smoke

    @19lexicon78 I did find a way to support my status as an incurable dork: a few years ago I restarted my childhood hobby of plastic jets modeling (as seen at square-2.com). The cheapest hobby I can think of, and it is guaranteed to place you among freaks forever!! :wink2
     
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  5. Mister X

    Mister X Moderator Staff Member

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    Jorge, I know I have some old boxes of unbuilt planes stored somewhere, that was something else you could get for dirt cheap years ago. I don't build them but I love the graphics on the boxes. Check out some of the modeling sites, either the guys that build kits that look real when done, or the guys building the Star Destroyer, sourcing the original modeling kits and parts, it's amazing.
     
  6. Longman

    Longman Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    I guess one factor is that people had other priorities for their money sixteen years ago.

    Thinking about how many photos people put on this site, how would it work if people didn't have digital cameras ?

    Fifteen years ago I bought my first digital camera, partly because I wanted to start selling things on Ebay.
    After months of looking around and reading reviews like the one below I bought a Canon Ixus with 3M Pixel
    and a 2x zoom.for £400.

    http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/67456-canon-ixus-v3-digital-camera

    About a year later I spent £100 on a 1Gbyte memory card !

    Nowadays I could buy a Canon Ixus with eight times the spec for one quarter of the price.

    At the time colleagues who were seriously into phtography were still buying 35mm SLRs and (probably rightly)
    saying that Digital was no match for film. Their fancy SLRs bought around then are now worth about 25 euros,
    in the same way that 200 Euros walkmans became worth 25 Euros when they went out of fashion.
    Will film cameras be worth more in a few years ?

    Back to audio equipment there are still bargains out there. I bought this JVC mini system with its fancy motorised colour changing front panel hiding a CD and a cassette deck (with motorised load like a VCR) in full working order complete with speakers last December as a £30 "Best Offer" having watched it on Ebay for weeks. For the minidisk fans there is a version with minidisc in place of the cassette.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  7. A O

    A O Active Member

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    Stan, what gets me is, despite the 'established' prices of now, where are all these experts? They aint on here. They used to be but not any more. I can only conclude that these are being purchased by eBay trophy hunters who have no interest in the hobby. And you're spot on with Camoagnolo stuff. Gone are the days when you'd get a bargain. This stuff just passes to and fro between a handfull of European traders. Luckily, like the walkmans, I have my box of nice stuff from the day. I have a NOS Chorus groupset from 1988 plus a few other nice bits and pieces.

    Nice to hear from you by the way.

    Guys, like Autoreverser, 19lexicon78 is from the earliest, earliest days of this forum.
     
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  8. Mister X

    Mister X Moderator Staff Member

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  9. Gibraltar

    Gibraltar Member

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    I'm curious @19lexicon78, how long ago was it when you could still get a top Walkman for a reasonable price? I've been collecting vintage full-size hifi for maybe 10 years now but just got back in to tape this year. Was it a slow and steady increase or did it jump significantly just recently? Indeed I observed a big increase in used record prices/decrease in popular albums in Tokyo shops starting maybe 4-5 years ago. Seems tape must still be very nice compared to records though.

    I'm sure the internet has played a role in the price increases, but it's also been great for real enthusiasts as well. For example who would have imagined a few years back that we'd have replacement DD center gears for anyone that needs one!
     
  10. Mister X

    Mister X Moderator Staff Member

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    This site has probably played the biggest part in price increases, for years this was the de facto place for information on portable audio. Before seeing the Pocket Calculator Site there was very little personal cassette player information available on the net (pre-2002), but this site started and the enlightenment blossomed. Now searchers could see that there were highly valuable boxes and Walkmans, and some boxes, that you thought were big-huge-cheap camera shop boxes, were actually highly regarded. The fact that this, and the other forum have members from around the world means that it's not limited geographically. For every one of us there's probably 200+ that don't post on forums but are still collecting and buying.
     
  11. A O

    A O Active Member

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    Walkman prices the same as boombox prices have been dictated very much by eBay. Like all things on eBay over time a 'market' price is established mainly by sellers who advertise their items based on the highest price of previously sold items and over time this rationalises itself into a ballpark price. What also happens is certain units DC2, DD9, 701 etc etc establish themselves as the 'must have ' units. This occurs due to collectors entering into the hobby and wanting what I call the 'eBay Queens' rather than researching the lesser-known more interesting units.

    Not wishing to boast but there are a few of us (three are on this thread alone) who were around from 1999 (day one of this forum) who have several nice top drawer walkmans that I know cost us less than 50 bucks a piece. This is due in part to the market not being established at this point.
     
  12. A O

    A O Active Member

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    I partially agree with this. I suspect this site has helped boost/establish the price of the ten or so must have/big hitter/eBay queen units but the 99.8% remaining units, I'd say certainly not.
     
  13. Longman

    Longman Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    The thing I find strange from some of the comments is that you could buy a new Sony Walkman Cassette player in the UK as late as 2011.

    scan0001.jpg

    Admittedly it was what you would buy if you either
    • Had a load of old cassettes you wanted to play
    • Couldn't afford an Ipod Nano, which was £132 for the cheapest version)
    I completely agree with the "eBay Queen" comments above.
    It is like deciding you are into 1980s cars then complaining about the prices being asked for
    second hand Ferrari Testarossas and Lamborghini Countaches.

    The reason Sony came up with models like the WM22 was to make something that was affordable
    to the average kid. Things like the Walkman DDs were the equivalent to the iPhone X today.
    The reason there is a limited supply is that few people could afford them when they were new.

    Mister X. Interesting comments and article about the Casio Qv-10 which made me go and check prices

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Ca...203098&hash=item25e2e3d639:g:jQEAAOSw0RlZc~gf

    While the Casio is probably worth more than my Canon Ixus, both are worth a small fraction of what they cost new.
     
  14. 19lexicon78

    19lexicon78 Active Member

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    @Jorge
    i have a plastic jet in box for 25 years. is it the revell stuff? made a couple of those. at some moment i was done building them, threw all of them in the garbage. hoppa

    @Longman
    i'm sorry classical audio isn't affordable anymore. talking about studer,emt, neumann etc stuff. begin 2000, was also one of the few ones looking for those. prices were also high back then, studers were still being made, but now it's 2-3x or more.oh, give you a tip. i don't know if you like R2R. there is one still cheap and plentifull. telefunken or aeg m15. one of the best, forget all those semi pro r2r stuff. studer/telefunken/nagra are the ones to have. must admit i never use it. but it's such a beautifull design. one of my best buys evarr. ;)

    @Chris
    at the time i didn't buy bikes with full campa c-record slx frames for 250 euro. 200, that was my max.. ;) man-o-man, did i knew after 2009, thanks to hipsters, prices went sky high. still have my 1986 pina montello custom paint, full campa c-record, mavic paris roubaix, c rec pista pedals=live in the city, simplex shifters. sold the rest. oja, have croce pista pedals NIB. don't think i'm selling those.

    i wasn't here in 1999. before stereo2go, i've red headfi. most of the info i've learned from headfi, at that time discman were the main focus at that forum. only very few people were interested in walkman. buying walkman was more of a childhood thing. bought 3x dc2 and dd9, because i've liked those. didn't want a huge collection. 10 pieces was enough. also discman, only a couple.

    @Gibraltar
    10 years ago. ok, dd9 were already expensive 150? dc2 could be had for 40 euro, 50 good ones. i think the last 5 years, prices went beserk.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2017
  15. 16s

    16s Member

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    I bought my DD33 from a shop in Tottenham court rd in London when I was in my teens. [The center gear still hasn’t cracked!]. I purchased a DD30 off eBay for £20 3 years ago. Now they are selling for crazy money and I imagine none of them are “original/virgin”. I bet they have all been opened up and probably had multiple owners (as they tried the fix the center gear and other issues). I envy you guys that had sense and civility to see the beauty in these devices 18years ago :thumbsup:
     
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  16. Mister X

    Mister X Moderator Staff Member

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    Longman, the cassette tape form was still hugely popular in a lot of countries until a few years ago and those old digital cameras were a buck in the thrift stores not too long ago.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/06/07/cassette.culture.zimbabwe/index.html

    The same thing has been happening over on the audio component side and there's more posting about it so It's easier to watch the development over the years. AudioKarma has a ton of newer posters that have been dedicating their time to scrounging for electronics. They start off with their first Pioneer, in the wild, find and then they're bringing home anything audio related. You don't see larger electronics in the thrift stores here anymore, I'm thinking a lot of it gets sent to auctions now that they know the value. I also like GarageJournal where they talk about vintage tools (and newer), I've been grabbing some old equipment for the shop and it's also exploding in value, they're laughing at how USA Craftsman is going for huge money now.

    Hopefully some of the old posters will come back, I'm pretty sure people get a little bored after a few years but there's always a little pull, they just need to see that there's still a thriving community here.
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2019
  17. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    There is a lot of posts (mine also) on cassettes recorded off CDs or a 'puter but in real life cassette is the only media preserving Analog when recorded off Analog: LPs or R2R...
    Wish I could but I cannot feel the pain of "old-timers" precog skills of collecting hi-end Walkmans and all of a sudden realizing that their collection is actually worth some $$$.
    Good for you, but lets not forget that this new fad made it possible for the luminaries like @mihokm continue their passion and make those dorky paperweights into music-making machines. Just a thought...
     
  18. autoreverser

    autoreverser Well-Known Member

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    ...you weret' the only one - i was there as well :nodding:
     
  19. autoreverser

    autoreverser Well-Known Member

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    ...it's just a question how you balance your funds on all of those :smoke
     
  20. autoreverser

    autoreverser Well-Known Member

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    Walkman (and boombox !) prices cannot be dictated by ebay. the value of anything is just beeing dictated by the amount of money somebody is prepared to pay for it, if it's a modeltrain, a pocketwatch, a fountainpen or diamonds. the prices for vintage modeltrains (and other antiques) f.ex. are drastically decreasing after an explosion app. 25 years ago.

    any generation got their "collectible"-hype.

    if you were born in the war-years and a "youngster" in the 50'ies/60'es and came from a normal working family, all you couldn't afford a new car - only some rotten rubbish. in the 80'es those people were finally settled/established with family, maybe own house, good job or busines, so they bought those memories they couldn't afford. well, as usual, the mainstream played a big roll - so VW beetle's and other (in those days bla-bla-cars) got a price-hype, look at VW T1-busses, they rised up to prices you get the pee in your eyes. well, certainly they go down again, because those generations either have their "most wanted" or don't want it anymore. same happened with modeltrains.
    i was orn in the later 60'es, so i'm a late 70'ies/80'es kid - my youth were pinballs, walkmen, vinyls, motorbikes and italian sportscars - i could only afford broken or worn pinballs, rusty old Alfa's and 2nd hand walkmen. today i'm settled and can afford better, so - as a collector and hunter - i can buy better.
    luckily i was early with the idea to collect walkmen, so i could snap me the one or other holy grail in the days when there were only a few collectors around.
    the ebay-craze is only a side-effect.
    look at pinball-prices, any DMD-machine costs (working) at least 2 k€, an allready worn 1998 Mediaval Madness costs you at least 5-6 k€ - because the generation who played'em in those days can afford to collect'em now - and who plays anymore with modeltrains, who wears a pocketwatch ? maybe those items will achieve a new spring when some Marvel-f***king hero plays with modeltrains or wears a pocketwatch...

    take it as it is - and right now prices for holy grails won't decrease, because those ones who hav'em are only willed to sell for big money.
     

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