Bought two Commodore sets – bad luck

Posted on 14 January 2018 by Frank

14/01/2018

Last December i bought on a Belgium auction site a C64c, with some games and a FC III…not clear on the pictures was, what I thought, a box from a FC III cartridge. Picked it up in Zoetermeer beginning of January. Bummer, just a damaged cardboard piece of probably the original box. C64c is working and I will be selling that one on Marktplaats again. Kept the games, nothing special but ok,  and will keep both boxed joysticks. Paid in total 82 euro’s for this one. Too much.

 

That same day I pickup the following in Cappelle aan den Ijssel. Not quit sure if everything was working, so i decided to go up there with a monitor and a test cartridge. Paid in the end 75 euro instead of 85, sound was not working of the breadbox. Wanted the cartridges and joysticks, will sell the rest again on Marktplaats. Nice guy, had a computer repair shop inside the local “kringloop winkel”, second hand shop. Met his supplier there, dealing in refurbished hardware and recycling of hardware. Quit some business, in dealing with large quantities of end-of-life hardware (storage, servers etc).

 

 

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Missed buy: Final cartridge II and III boxed

Posted on 14 January 2018 by Frank

14/01/2018

Finally a Final Cartridge III boxed came on Marktplaats for auction, it’s like a ghost. It seems that plenty of FC III are available, but none of them came up for sale as a mint & boxed. There are absolutely no pictures to find on the internet, and I tried some facebook groups to find pictures with no luck. Bidding was between me and some lucky other collector..when pricing went up to 60 euro…i bailed out…Still not sure if i should have pushed the price up. You never know when another one will be available.

Second was a auction for a C128….with a FC II boxed! Never came across one in the last 6 months. Current bidding is at 200, and although i can sell the 128d immediately to another collector, I am not quit sure about pushing this one over the 200 🙁

Meaning i will not have the FCIII and FCII Boxed…for now 😉

 

 

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Bummer…power monitor send back to Australia

Posted on 2 January 2018 by Frank

I ordered beginning December two power monitors from Darren in Australia…You can use them in between your Commodore and the power supply to monitor the voltage and current. Handy, primary because the power supplies are not that stable after decades, and tend to fail..the main reason why so many Commodore 64 are on the market with broken IC’s! You can also plug them in your userport to monitor the power (but not giving any protection then).

Anyway…still after 6 weeks no arrival….today Darren contacted me that the Dutch postage have send the parcel back….#@()U_@)(U#%@{OJP@{Jo. What a waste of expensive postage costs. Have to find out why they send it back, since i never got any notification of the arrival in the first place. Not the first time Dutch postage “forgets” to drop a notification in your postbox at home.

Called PostNL…sorry…all the will do is notify the post delivery of a complaint that a parcel notification wasn’t left behind. Parcel was send back on the 8th of December.  The other option is that the send will contact Australian post to discuss resending with Dutch postage, and maybe you can get a discount on resending..what a shitty post delivery organization we’ve got in Holland. This the 3th incident in two months with delivery.

 

 

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Mint 1541-II drive

Posted on 2 January 2018 by Frank

02-01-2018

Happy new year to all!  This year we spent new years eve with some good friends in the south of Holland, near Maastricht. Since i found a mint 1541-II drive in Hasselt, I decided that (too much joy  of my girlfriend) we should drive up there on the first of January to pick it up.

When you zoom out in Google…Hasselt is just near Maastricht….well it’s still an hour drive, with not much sleep and a hangover, but it was worth it. Frank sold his boxed 1541-II which he owned and was stored in his attic for decades. It was the only thing he had left, and it sure looks like just a new one. Absolutely undamaged box and styrofoam inside, the test disk still sealed, manual looks like new.  The only thing which is missing is probably the plastic bag of the disk itself, which should be there?

Take a look yourself, got this for 45 euro, and will be selling my less mint boxed version shortly on Marktplaats. Nice start for 2018. Will pick up some sets today from Zoetermeer and Cappelle aan den IJsel later on.

 

 

 

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C64c – old board edition – mint

Posted on 30 December 2017 by Frank

30 December 2017

Last addition to my collection this year. Just posted on Marktplaats, previous owner Peter from Zevenaar was selling his childhood Commodore. Within half an hour after the ad appeared I bought it for 50 euro’s, and did a quick pickup.

Although the cardboard box is missing, the Commodore itself is in a very good condition (and the warranty bill included) and came with a unbroken seal. Tested ok at home. Nice. Not much included, just the Commodore. I can remove this edition now from my wishlist then.

I already had one, but the housing had a reset button and there was some yellowing. Will sell that one on Marktplaats next week.

This early 64C edition came with the older “breadbox” main board,, after his release Commodore went further in cutting costs and used the smaller/newer main boards. Main difference is the use of the older keyboard type (where the characters are printed both on top as on the front, the newer keyboards they are printed on the top only). To check which motherboard there is you can check the cartridge port, there is the main fuse of the board. If you see the whole fuse, it’s the old board, if you just see the top of the fuse it is the newer board)

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Late Christmas gift from Amazon

Posted on 30 December 2017 by Frank

The holy bible of Commodore repairs. In mint condition Art Margolis “Troubleshooting & Repairing your Commodore 64”, and Robert C. Brenner, “Commodore 64 Troubleshooting and Repair Guide”. Last one is a previous public library book, which is not quit in mint condition. But hey, nice additions to the collection!

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Silver label’s on Ebay

Posted on 29 December 2017 by Frank

I know pricing on eBay is for specific items often 2 or 3 times of what it probably would do in the Netherlands. Currently there are two “silver labels” for sale.

One with a 326298 board for 700 euro, and a ku-14194 board for 750 euro. Guess that is quit a lot of money.

Same goes for any Commodore 64 SX and the Commodore 64 GS. First one priced between 450-700 euro, the GS easily hits the 1000 euro if boxed. But then again, a lot of these items are not sold directly, offers reappearing immediately after the auction ends.

Retro collecting madness.

 

 

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Silver board repair (KU-14194HB) Part 2 – I screwed up. Did I?

Posted on 29 December 2017 by Frank

After not been handling any de/soldering stations for over 20 year…why the hell did you think you can do nice and good repair immediately :). So i got my spare practice 64c board, which I am trying to desolder IC’s…with no professional results yet lol. Seems that there are different methods you can try….and found out that at least your must have a good eye sight. Which i’m not quit gifted with. Second, my current soldering station is insufficient..40w.

 

 

Anyway… opened the RF shield of the VIC housing yesterday. To find out that both capacitors had been leaking, and found a third one, C34, which was leaking as well. Cut them loose, cleaned the board with isopropanol and started with continuity testing the traces beneath the capacitors. All ok.

Since there are a lot more capacitors, tightly soldered against the board, there is no way to find out visually if they are leaking. Decided to replace them all. Tried to desolder the pins of the three caps I removed, still in the board…its not that easy as on all those YouTube video’s…haven’t successfully passed my desolder exam I guess. Gave up for now.

What more of a problem is, and it might be my own gentle fuckup, is a broken trace I found beneath the board, if you look carefully just above the shadow line in the middle.

That made me grumpy last night. To have my KU board, and well, replacing capacitors isn’t the issue, but a board with a trace to fix? And i probably did it myself in not carefully handling the board the last few days. On a second thought, if you look at the photo it looks like if someone on purpose interrupted that trace, it doesn’t look like accidental damage?

Well…did some continuity tests, and it seems that this trace won’t be flowing any juice anymore….

More repair work to do. For now I am going to get more capacitors….and  more practicing on my repair board.

 

 

 

 

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Demotivators for collecting

Posted on 29 December 2017 by Frank

Sometimes you run into amazing pages of other collectors,  probably collection for over 20 years or more. Or you just run into reference pages about specific parts of the Commodore 65, like the disk drives. Today my read of the day was a dreadfully layout website “the secret weapons of commodore”, but it was a fun read on all kinds of Commodore related hardware.

I was reading about the 1543, 1571-II, 1572, 1582, 1590, 1592..argh and just thinking, what, where came these drives from, never heard of them. Hey, it seems that a 1581 is a holy grail for a lot of starting collectors, so let’s not talk about a double 1581 drive??

Not funny, realizing that you started a never ending project. Glad that some of them actually never made it to the market, so they are already placed out-of-collecting-scope 🙂

 

 

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Hoarding….a car full and a set of 10 x Commodore 64

Posted on 28 December 2017 by Frank

In October an add was placed on Marktplaats, for sale 10 commodores, no pictures or anything. Seller was from Boxtel. I gave him call about what he was expecting for pricing. I offered 200 euro and explained that a working Commodore, old model probably would cost 20-35 euro. Because i was very enthusiastic about collecting, he agreed on the sales. So, after work, in terrible weather and traffic i drove to hist plae. Elder guy and his girlfriend, nice people. They still had everything stored in the attic and  over the years he bought Commodores at garage sales…and he couldn’t tell me if things were working or not. In the past weeks they cleared most of the attic, as he told me it’s was absolutely stuffed there with junk which  they sold…except for the Commodores and some Atari stuff. Nice conversation with the guy and his girlfriend though.

Amazing how much dirt and dust can cumulate over the past decades…..There were indeed 10 commodores, spread in every corner of the attic. Boxes with diskdrives, disks, printers, joysticks etc. Well, amazing in a sort of way….I think my car was absolutely packed. And after so many years of storage it was smelly, due to smoking, dust etc. Everywhere in my car there were boxes. It just pilled up at my house in the living room. I cleaned immediately most direct of it, and threw away all bags and cardboard boxes.

So…..

  • one non-working silver (repairing it now)
  • Sold both Suzo joysticks for 40 euro’s to some guy in Belgium
  • 2 working C64c
  • 8 non working C64
  • boxed Citizen iDP-560-CD printer, which i kept
  • Freeze Frame cartridge and manual, which i kept
  • Final catridges, a few, and about 8 Power cartridges
  • Boxes and boxes of floppies
  • Diskdrives, including a working Ocean and Amtech RF501 (which i sold for 35)
  • Some atari stuff (sold for 12 euro, nothing much)
  • Loads of different joysticks (which i kept)

Anyway, nice conversations. And I guess, a good deal, besides the stack of Commodores in need of repairing…..and sometimes…i still can smell what items came from there..

 

 

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