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I have a number of items (among them, old (80s) Apple memorabilia and a nylon flag that's about 2m², featuring the Cupertino font).

I'm thinking of selling these (possibly in conjunction with some Apple-related anniversary), but I've no idea if they're worth $5 or $5000 — and I'd hate to guess wrong.

So how do you determine a reasonable value for such items?

@RobertCartaino, @Chenmunka, thanks for the way you have moderated this.

Here's a picture of the flag: Apple Personal Computers flag

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    I'm afraid that this is a shopping recommendation question. These questions are not a good fit for the StackExchange format as they are primarily opinion based and liable to become outdated rapidly. Discussions of this nature however are accepted in the chatroom.
    – Chenmunka ♦
    Jun 3, 2016 at 13:00
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    @Chenmunka Without soliciting specific sources, I thought this might raise an interesting issue for this space in general. I edited the post without (hopefully) changing the underlying context. See if this better fits the premise of this site. I'm good either way.
    – Robert Cartaino
    Jun 3, 2016 at 16:51
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    @RobertCartaino: Good call. I've reopened the question. It could indeed be useful.
    – Chenmunka ♦
    Jun 3, 2016 at 18:35
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    @JAL, I think the intent here is to ask the wider question of process, rather than solicit opinion on the specific items (which would be of only transient interest).
    – Sean Houlihane
    Jun 4, 2016 at 11:19
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    @SeanHoulihane you're right, but I'm still curious about the example item.
    – JAL
    Jun 4, 2016 at 13:07

3 Answers 3

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Part of the value of any item is the demand for it. If there's no demand, even if there was only one made, it's unlikely to sell for a high price. You have a few options.

  1. Scan eBay/Google Shopping/Craigslist for any equivalent equipment. eBay has a great feature that lets you filter your search results by completed or sold listings (there is a difference). Using those options you can see what people are listing items for vs what they're actually selling for.

  2. Find an expert. You might want to look on reddit or other specialized Apple forums for people who might know about these things, or would be interested in buying them.

  3. Ask Apple. This is more of a long-shot, but I've found that some companies actually value when people contact them about old promotional and collectable items. Hell, Topps threw away most of their trading cards from their early days and even they don't have a complete set of their catalog.

Another thought (mostly related to Apple). Have you ever heard of RedLightRunner? It's a site dedicated to Apple memorabilia. They have some items for sale as well as a near-complete catalog of other items.

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  • Good point about contacting the original vendor - as well as having an opinion on the value, they might generate some publicity which could lead to additional information.
    – Sean Houlihane
    Jun 4, 2016 at 11:22
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    You definitely forgot a place that has experts you can ask – here on Retrocomputing, in chat!
    – Laurel
    Jun 4, 2016 at 18:39
  • @Laurel I'm not sure this would be entirely on-topic in chat. Maybe in a separate room, but not in the main chat room.
    – JAL
    Jun 5, 2016 at 13:55
  • I've found eBay an excellent way to estimate the street value of retro and current computers to decide how to set pricing. Even for collectable items rather than computers eBay should have enough similar items to estimate the value.
    – Michael Shopsin
    Jun 7, 2016 at 19:33
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I would guess there is a much smaller market for memorabilia in retro computing as there is for hardware - Things you can use your flag for are somewhat limited - A piece of (working) hardware promises basically unlimited fun. On the other hand, non-hardware stuff has generally much earlier met the dustbin than real hardware, so it should be considerably more rare.

Price for non-hardware stuff is definitely much more based on meeting the right buyer in the right buying mood at the right time. I, for example, have a quite decent retro collection, but have never thought (and don't think I ever will) of spending money on anything else but hardware. Just blatantly assuming everyone else might be like me, I'd say the typical retro computing guy will consider such memorabilia a nice side dish, but not the main course he would be spending considerable money on. You are searching for an Apple memorabilia collector, not a retro computing hobbyist.

In case you want to sell - I guess neither eBay nor auction houses would be the right place - Material like your example are too rare and too specialized for selling through generic channels IMHO (It definitively doesn't hurt looking, but don't have high hopes to get real guidance from there). Better try and ask in specialized Apple retro forums - a lot of them have "for sale" areas - whether someone would be interested to buy and what they would be willing to spend. I guess the proposal to try and contact the original manufacturer is a very useful one as well.

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  • I'd suggest that you might want to seek out venues where people show off vintage computer stuff. Someone who has a booth at such a venue to show off the cool stuff he does with his Apple ][ might be happy to have a banner to display with it. Such a person might not offer big money, but your memorabilia would be much more appreciated than sitting in a box somewhere.
    – supercat
    Jul 26, 2016 at 21:58
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Ask an expert has to be the most obvious answer, and maybe sensible for higher value or rarer items. An auction house should be able to help (for a fee), although they can equally get these things quite wrong.

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