Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
selling a CRT display
- Thread starter zoran
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Sorry, but nobody wants a CRT anything anymore. I posted a CRT TV for free on kijiji about 5 years ago and there were no takers and I ended up just dropping it off to be recycled.
Some of us still like high end Trinitron CRTs and the like, but they have to be darn near perfect to want to deal with them. Personally, I will pick up nice Apples, SGIs, and Sony branded ones but if they are off color or dim then I don't want to mess with them.
Speaking for myself, I also don't want to deal with shipping...
Speaking for myself, I also don't want to deal with shipping...
Look up your local gaming leagues. If it's a quality CRT, they'll likely want it. Those groups pay a premium because the old tech is simply superior in terms of lag and blur to new stuff. If it's a Trintron, you could get a few hundred for it. I got rid of a couple pro grade CRTs I used to use several years ago for around $400 each. I'd bought them in the late 90s for around 700 each.
Good luck getting anything close to that now.
If someone offered me offered an SGI branded 24" Trinitron in perfect or near perfect shape, we might talk at about half that price. Otherwise, that's nowhere close to the market price.
I don't think you'll even find an analog output on a high end video card anymore.
I have a couple of Apple monitors on my want list. At the top of it now is the two-page monochrome display, but my price is probably $50 or less on it.
BTW, I meant to also add that those of us who like CRTs can pretty much have our pick of good tubes out there, meaning Trinitrons or equivalent. If it's an aperture grill, I don't think even a CRT lover would grab it unless it otherwise has a rare connector on it.
It was in 2014, I doubt much has changed since then. It depends on who you sell to. Old school gamers will pay up. The actual monitors were worth less than $120 at that point, but the rarity of quality CRT monitors makes them prime for price gouging. I can't say my moral fiber is strong in that department. Price gouging it is! The monitors themselves were bought for 700 a pop, but they were over a grand when they first came out. Not your typical big box store equipment.
People will pay anything they want, especially if it's rare now due to the destruction through recycling. Plenty of regular CRTs out there, but when you're selling the Rolls Royce of its time aimed at professionals, then that's something else. Truth be told, I'd have let them go for cheap but knowing how sought after some old CRTs are, I had to sell high.
Last edited:
You're right-shadow mask is what I meant.
[doublepost=1492260897][/doublepost]
I'm probably one of the few on here who has bought a CRT in the past year.
The prices you're quoting do not exist except for a very, very few exceptions. The FW900 Trinitron tube is the only monitor in the consumer realm that still brings any kind of significant money consistently. Otherwise, rare monitors badged for certain brands(I mentioned Apple and SGI because they are my interest) CAN bring low 3 figure prices but there are a lot of factors that go into that.
I also don't want to ship them-it's not even so much the cost, but I've had bad experiences. UPS managed to ruin a 17" ADC CRT for me when one of the alignment magnets disappeared on it. It was "professionally" packed and had no external damage but it left me with a big green patch in the top right corner. Fortunately, UPS did pay up on insurance for it.
Also, I'd still consider anything that was in the $1K range new to be in the consumer range of products. It was high end, certainly, but still consumer. Monitors used for broadcast work and the like were often in the 5-figure range.
BTW, just to show what I'm saying, here's an auction from last month with an SGI branded FW900. Again, this likely remains THE most valuable CRT on the market, and the SGI branding will carry a premium to guys like me.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SGI-GDM-FW9...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
Last edited:
You're talking about consumer lines, I am not. I've made that clear three times now, this being the third. The monitors in the 5K range were niche products at the time and limited scope. You're referencing color grading monitors used in video production and editing, I am not.
The cost debate has died down. A CM170 can be had for under a grand now and a 171 is less than 3K through an authorized dealer. It's dirt cheap for value when you compare expensive mainstream brands that have grading capability built atop their normal functions, whereas Flanders' product is made specific for grading.
The cost debate has died down. A CM170 can be had for under a grand now and a 171 is less than 3K through an authorized dealer. It's dirt cheap for value when you compare expensive mainstream brands that have grading capability built atop their normal functions, whereas Flanders' product is made specific for grading.
Last edited:
And you keep moving the goalposts on just how good your monitors were. At first you said $700, then over $1000, and now over $5000. I still say at $5K they weren't the "touched by angels hands" tubes that might still hold some value.
I'll still stand by what I said-find a 24" Widescreen Trinitron and we're talking decent money. Anything else and you're in the "come and get it" range.
And, again, you're talking about a transaction that happened 3 years ago-LCDs have come a long way since then. Only really nutty people like me still care about them. We can be picky about getting the absolute best.
And, again, unless you've actually been part of a CRT transaction in the past year I don't think you can give an accurate assessment of the state of the market.
I posted a recent auction result for one of the few legitimately valuable CRTs out there, and it still sold for a lot less than you claim. Let's see some recent sales for your monitors if you think they can still bring $400 or more. BTW, the link I posted was for an SGI-branded monitor, although it was a rebadged Sony. SGI was NEVER a consumer brand, but folks who like them will still pay up for SGI stuff.
When did I say $1000? There is no $1000 figure anywhere in this thread except your post. You've placed a static figure on what you believe is "pro grade" material. You placed the goalposts first. Sigh, I did state I made the transaction three years ago. The monitors were not worth the $400 I sold them EACH for, but the buyer was desperate enough and I intentionally sold them at a higher cost. I have stated this twice now.
[doublepost=1492266906][/doublepost]
I did say this, didn't I? I have absolutely zero qualm about fleecing someone because they're desperate enough to buy a local CRT instead of ordering over fleabay. I'd do it again if I had any more.
Last edited:
I'm simply referencing your numbers, which as I said keep going up.
Again, show me recent sales of the monitors you reference.
They were over a grand when new. By the time I bought them they were 700 a pop. I sold them for 400 a pop when they were worth barely over a 100 dollars. In the same manner my current dual setup had a cost of $1,500 MSRP and I bought them for less than that over a year after they came out and they're worth 900-1000 now, possibly less. I had dual FP1350s. They were well over a grand when they came out in 98 or so, and they nearly halved in price when I bought them. I did have a Sony F500 something for a short while and let a then girlfriend borrow it, but things didn't work out and I got it back with a huge hole in the front (she was insane after the fact). In hindsight, the value on that would have dropped like a rock because Sony released one 2 years later that destroyed the values.
Edit: I ditched CRTs not long after. Spent a tidy sum getting my first LCD, which blew my CRTs out of the water. I've still got it. I keep it as a memento.
Edit: I ditched CRTs not long after. Spent a tidy sum getting my first LCD, which blew my CRTs out of the water. I've still got it. I keep it as a memento.
Last edited:
That's not true. I paid about that for my 21" 1600x1200 Mitsubishi Diamondtron.
I dumped it for recycling after about 12 years (the manufacturer replaced it once during the warranty period).
When did you buy that? I wanted one of those but they were close to 3K in those days. I had a decent career at the time but 3K in the late 90s was a **** ton of money. ViewSonic had a really high res CRT in those days. Costed a couple grand, it was decent but if you needed the res you had to cough up the money. Compared to "low" resolution monitors of the time, it was average. Different strokes for different folks.
Things were different then. Your money went a lot further for products. Now monitors are more or less the same, often being the same panel distributed to different companies. On a cold day, the heat from your CRT could warm your cold hands. It was later with LCDs I realized how much valuable desk space I'd lost. Dual 30" is the best size for my workspace now. 27" units are nice, but they're not that great. Anything larger than 30" requires funny business to get video to display properly.
Last edited:
In the late 90s/early 2000s it was not difficult to find a Trinitron or Diamontron that could do 1600x1200 with ease.
Going back to Apple monitors, I actually find 1600x1200 from the true-flat Diamontron in the ADC CRT more legible and useable than the same resolution on the 21" flat Trinitron.
Going back to Apple monitors, I actually find 1600x1200 from the true-flat Diamontron in the ADC CRT more legible and useable than the same resolution on the 21" flat Trinitron.
Prices are what mattered. If you could wait out then, you'd see the price drop rapidly. I can't remember if it had to do with LCDs coming into the mix or the CRT field was always that volatile. Picking up my monitors then cheap and new was what I considered a miracle. I felt a pang of guilt for buying that pair at nearly 50% off. When did Apple offer a flat panel CRT? I'd never have spent the... I want to say 1700 the FPs original cost. The Sony F520 came out at the same price point of the F500 came out at. The FW900 you referenced held its value/price well into the mid 2000s when it began coming down in price. It's still worth whatever price is slapped onto it, and you could probably fleece someone just because of how sought after they are. By then I was already well into using my first LCD and didn't bother looking back at the CRT usage. I swapped out for a glass desk so going back to CRT wasn't within the realm of possibility anymore. If I could deal with the space and didn't have kids now, I'd definitely like having a dual CRT setup just because I could.
Last edited:
I bought it around 2001. A 1600x1200 LCD cost about the double then.
Last edited:
Emacs had true-flats, but the stand-out was the 17" with the Apple Display Connector(ADC). It was introduced in '99 or early 2000 I think along with the Gigabit Ethernet, Cube, and the first line of ADC studio/cinema displays. The bottom line was the 15" LCD, the 17" CRT mid-range(I think around $800), and the 22" was astronomical(I think close to $4K at intro).
It's a bit of an oddball beast-as I said it has a true-flat Diamontron tube with a "smoke" colored front section and clear rear/stand. It's right at home next to a Cube.
I don't have a great photo of mine next to my Cube, but here is one
Here's one attached to a G5
Unfortunately, this monitor is ONLY usable with a computer that has an ADC port. This means Gigabit G4 and newer, G4 Cube, and AGP G5s. The A1006 ADC-DVI adapter only passes DVI-D signals, so it won't operate the CRT. Supposedly there's a 3rd party adapter that will work, but I don't personally own one nor have I seen one.
Wasn't there a company called eMacs that made prebuilt PCs? I ask only because I've spent years thinking Apple people were referring to those!
[doublepost=1492277149][/doublepost]
[doublepost=1492277149][/doublepost]
Ah, you saved quite a bit of money then. Even intro level crap LCD sticker prices sent a shock.
That was eMachines.
The "e" in eMac was supposedly for Education. They were sort of an updated iMac G3. They are G4s with a 17" CRT. The case is slippery white plastic and the back is "egg shaped" like an iMac G3. They weigh over 50lbs and have no good handholds on them, which makes carrying one on the difficult side(reference the slippery plastic content above). They also have massive fans in the back and may be one of the best cooled Macs ever made. The size/shape/weight made them difficult to grab and run with, and the cooling fan helped keep them running in computer labs that might not have been overly well cooled. Both were good features for K-12 schools.
The last generation eMacs were faster and had better GPUs than iMac G4s at a lower price. They actually were quite a good bang for the buck-Apple sold them retail on and off, although I think the last 1.42ghz model was edu only.