What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

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radron5809
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What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

Post by radron5809 »

What is a fair price to ask for a 100% working 1581 drive with a new Ray Carlsen $20 power supply for it?


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Gyro Gearloose
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Re: What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

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Check sold items on eBay. You can ask 200-300$ US apparently and they're not even good-looking or with the box! And to think I have a complete one in-box...
They are definitely a coveted item.
"fair" is a nebulous concept. Fair for me or fair for my neighbor are two things.
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Re: What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

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I have C64s and really don't find a benefit of a 1581 drive. Are these drives mainly useful for the C128?
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Re: What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

Well besides the greater storage space it is also smaller, quieter, cooler, and more reliable. Plus it looks so cool. Well for a nerd like me.
Indeed on a 128 it is also faster since the 128 has improved serial transfer built-in. This also works with the 1571.
I might be wrong but 3.5" media is more available but I see you can still get mountains of 5.25" media as well.
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Re: What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

ooooh and I forgot: you can set the device number with easily-accessed switches on the 1581, as on the 1571 and 1541-II.

It doesn't head knock when formatting. It works great with a Super Snapshot. etc...
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Re: What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

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I have 2 1571s, they are my favorites. Can nibble copy with serial with the ZoomFloppy and has dip switch for device number.
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Re: What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

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I still have my original 1581 bought new at Toys R Us back then. Like the pack rat I am I saved the box, manual, disk, etc. Even though these things are going for a premium I would never sell it. I used it back then for my BBS downloads section, storing one file games and Qlink downloads and for GEOS. It works great with GEOS.

As for the price I am surprised they keep going up. I found one on eBay a few years back for under $100 and picked it up just in case. It is not as pristine as mine but it was cheap for the time.
Commodore - Changing the world 8 bits at a time.
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Re: What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

Yup, those things are like talismans or something these days. I also have a 1571 in box, a guy at work 20 years ago asked me if I liked "old crap" I said "sure" next day he brings me the 1571 in box -- free. :mrgreen:
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Re: What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

Post by radron5809 »

One just sold on Ebay, untested, as-is, no cables or anything. Sold for $109 and $15 shipping. Glad I met up with a lady from local flea market. She sold me 2 working 1581 drives (1 bad power supply), 2 working 1571 drives, 1 1541 that I didn't mess with yet, 3 C64s and some odds and ends for $100. Might as well say I got my 1581s for free
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Re: What's a fair price for a 1581 drive

Post by Zippy Zapp »

Those be some awesome deals. You can't beat a free 1571! And that is a load of stuff for 100 bones, Nice! My 1571 also came from Toys R Us. LOL I still have the box and all that stuff with that drive too. But it wasn't FREE unfortunately. I think I bought it with my first C128. Sadly I didn't keep the C128, as everything we were doing was in 64 mode so I ended up with a 64C, 1571, 1581, 1541 and 1764 for BBS use. I have all that gear still but I wish I would have saved the 128.

That said, sell it on eBay with a starting price of $99 or something like that. Be sure to list it as tested working with screenshots to show it. It will probably fetch $200+
Commodore - Changing the world 8 bits at a time.
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