When looking to purchase retro consoles or PC's it is worth remembering some key things. But above all remember this; The cost price of a console or PC is as much as the next man is willing to pay for it. Forget guides in magazines where they tell you a product is worth just £10. If you go on ebay and put a bid of £10 on a machine, chances are you will always be beaten. Somone is always willing to pay a little above the normal asking price which means you need to be prepared to pay more than you were expecting. Thats the

reality of auction buying on sites like Ebay. If your at a car boot sale then you could reasonably expect to pay no more than about £10 for said item, but then if the seller is aware of its potential profit and sells it for more than you expected then its probably because the seller knows there are going to be people around who will be willing to buy for a higher price. Yes you could wait until the end of the sale when the seller will probably slash their prices, but can you afford to wait that long? Will it still be there when you get back?

Buying from car boot sales

The most important point to note here is that you will probably have no way of knowing if the product is fully working, and even if you ask if it is working, the seller will probably say it is, even if it is not. Before parting with your cash ask other stall holders and see if they recall seeing that particular seller before at the car boot sale? Are they regular sellers? Will they be there next week to offer a refund if the item is not working? Will they even give a refund if it is faulty? Ask and find out. Also know your prices before setting out to a boot fair. Dont pay way over the odds for a machine that is worth just pennies.

Buying from Ebay and other auction sites

Ebay is perhaps the best auction site for buying retro consoles and PC's. Again, the key thing here is to know your prices. You may though, not mind paying more for your product, you may want it that much that you will be willing to pay anything for it. Many people enter the auctions hoping to get a bargain but try looking at the 'buy now' prices. Sometimes they are reasonable and save you time and effort entering into auctions. Always check the description twice over and check the sellers feeback score and rating. Does the seller seem reliable? What is their return policy? If you dont know, ask. Some people do sell broken items and state it on their description. So look carefully. But ebay is safer than buying from a car boot sale because you have automatic ratings to see if the seller is trustoworthy or not and you are in a small way protected by ebays dispute resolution team and fraud department.

What prices can I expect to pay?

Go to each systems page to see how much you should

pay for what your after. However you should note that my prices are based on the

example of someone selling the following: Console and 2 contollers (no box) in

reasonable condition, fully working, no games.

Paying for games/cartrdiges and disks

You must remember that how much you pay will depend on how rare the console is. So a Playstation 1 game will fetch only say £2 whilst an Atari 7800 game might fetch say £5. The next thing you must consider is if the game is working and in good condition and if it comes boxed or not and has instructions or not. With the more rare consoles people dont tend to be too fussed if the instructions are included or not. But it helps add value certainly. Also some games are more rare to find than others. Be prepared to pay a fair bit for these. Some old games can go for anything between £15 and £40

Paying for extras and accessories

Again this depends on how hard to find the console itself is and also how rare your accessory is. A NES power glove for example can set you back £50-£60 whilst a PS1 dancing mat can cost as little as £5