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Cashing In On Antique Computers
mwillems writes: "The Economist
posts this story this week about how old computer hardware can be worth money. At the Vintage Computer Festival East, a lot of old hardware was seen, swapped and admired. An industry is emerging, it seems: an Apple One apparently fetched $25,000 at auction. Time to dust off my Ohio Scientific OSI Challenger 4-p!" These festivals sounds like a lot of fun -- can anyone offer some first-hand reports from the Boston one? Hmm. The local thriftstore has a working Mac IIci for $1.98 -- maybe I should put it on eBay as a collectable.
You know these things:
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
But, there is something special about booting an Apple II+ when it was the one of few personal computers you could actually handle in 1980. I had an OSI C2-4P, and access to HP 67 and Apple II/II+. I'd love to reaquaint myself with these old slugs. It'd be fun to have a glass extension on my home where I keep them on display but away from my scrappy teenage son and his clever, trickster friend Ferris. I'd hate for anyone to actually turn them on and burn them out ...
The two most common things in the Universe are dark matter and stupidity.
Get yours while it's hot!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I have to laugh when I hear people saving Mac SEs and Stinkpads, thinking they'll become collectible. Not a chance in the world. These were mass produced by the hundreds of thousands, and have zero chance of becoming collectible. Scarcity means value, and these machines are too plentiful to be worth anything even as salvage.
On the other hand, I own a Sol-20, which is a true collectible. Now I just wish I could find a buyer, since it is supposedly now worth around $1000-1500.
Seeing as eBay already has a shitload of IIci's for $9.99 (with 0 bids!), I wouldn't exactly call a IIci 'collectible'. They made FAR too many of these for them to ever be of any value due to scarcity.
Hey,
The local thriftstore has a working Mac IIci for $1.98 -- maybe I should put it on eBay as a collectable.
Ebay has a Sinclair ZX Spectrum or two for £2.99... maybe I should buy one and put it on ebay as a collectable.
Hold on, there's something wrong with this plan...
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
I believe these old machines are important parts of our history. They are certainly rare and there aren't going to be any more produced, so they may well be good investments. But if we, as geeks, don't conserve our own history no-one else is going to.
Oh, first post, by the way.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
A few months ago, one of the local Silly Valley school districts (Los Altos, iirc) Yahoo-auctioned off a working Apple I, signed by Steve Wozniak, complete with a picture of the Woz signing it.
It went for $350.
I didn't buy it.
--Blair
"D'oh!"
I have long been a collector of old computer equipment. Not in the as a hobby thing, it just seems to keep piling up. I was selling alot of it on e-bay and found this:
Old (I mean pre 1975) monitors are at a premium. Many of these exhibits have working machines, but no terminals or monitors. (Note: This means you'll get up to 1,000 or so for verrrrrry rare ones.)(Yeah, it ain't much, but it ain't a kick in the teeth either.)
Anyone still got an Altair?? Some of the old Commodores? Nostalgia carries a premium.
Oddly enough on a side note, I sold 8 PDP7's, with terminals and keyboards (To the tune of 48 working sets) and only got 300$ And noone even wanted the old Sun INP. (SunOS 3.5 not good enough?) Heck, that thing even has an Apple I model processor from Motorolla.
I have also had good luck with front bezels and name plates in good condition, power supplies, etc...
Finally, the expansion boards. There things sold for 5K and up initially, and will still go for that if you're paitent. Post a web page with all of the names and model numbers and a contact addy. Someone will search the net and hit your page and buy that board. I have sold video boards for 8K, comm and memory boards have gone for as high as 12K.
I find that the old washing machine hard drives aren't worth the shipping, so strip em and sell off the parts. Same for most other large equipment.
Now, would anyone like to place a bid on 25 IBM 8585 models?? Featuring a 386/25 processor and a full 4MB of Ram... I think they'd make great doorstops. (Unless you already have an Apple IIci)
~Hammy
See, twenty million years after it's introduction and it's still OVERPRICED UNDERPOWERED JUNK.
AMD FOREVER!!
With the Slashdot Effect you've now brought upon the classic computer market, the market will soon be gone thanks to everyone selling and no one buying. Thank you Slashdot.
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
Yeah, in addition to drooling over the exhibits and expensive/rare stuff, I picked up some pretty cool stuff at VCF 4.0 last year. Lots of old software, hardware, and parts.
(Yes, this is another shameless plug for VCF 5.0, September 15-16th, in San Jose. Why wait until after it's over to read about it on Slashdot? ;) VCF East was the first time the VCF crew put on a show for the East Coast crowd, and it should grow over the next few years.
Meanwhile, for the Silicon Valley crowd, VCF 5.0 is also under the same roof as CA Extreme, a weekend of all the 80s arcade machines and prototypes you could imagine. Serious dr00l.
Ok, I'll admit that I collect old computers. I've even got a little site documenting my collection of 'home computers' (you remember, the little all-in-one console-style machines that hooked to a TV). I like these machines because they represent the original path 'home' computers were on before the incipient 'beige-dom' of PCs overwhelmed the market. These little guys were sold in department stores (you know, like furniture) and some featured quaint pictures on their packaging of housewives entering recipes into them (for storage on audio cassettes). Hmmm, those were the days.
Sure there are lots of common ones like the C64 and Ataris but there were dozens of different kinds of fascinating machines from less known manufacturers all around the world. What's cool is that many of them were so unique in terms of shape, design, peripherals and OS. I even have a couple of little home computers from Russia. While I have about 70 different machines now, there are lots that I don't yet have and have only heard of. I know there were many unique models made and sold in South America and Arabic countries in the eighties. I have one machine designed and built in Yugoslavia in the early '80's called the Pecom 64. It's based on an RCA 1802 processor.
You can see my collection at: www.homecomputermuseum.com. Stop by and drop me a line if you also collect these kinds of machines.
--- Mark
I wouldn't be surprised if the market for old tech toys takes off in a couple years. It seems like everything from my youth, from those metal lunch boxes to Star Wars action figures, is collectable nowadays. If I had only saved some of my junk...
If you are interested in buying old computers, don't bother with eBay. I found that most of the stuff on there is overpriced. You get the best deals from thrift stores, flea markets, Salvation Amry, etc. Also, being able to repair stuff really comes in handy. If you have a little bit of knowledge, you can turn a non-working computer into a working one without much effort.
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www.moneybythenumbers.com
The only thing keeping me from donating an old HP 6170S is that I don't know what to do about erasing the HD. I'm using Sami Tolvanen's Eraser, a GPLed utility, but I'm still a little nervous. Of course there is the option of simply destroying the HD, but this particular monstrosity has a very flaky BIOS that somehow makes it extremely difficult to install new HDs.
Sorry, but I was messing around and making robots with my KIM-1 way before Apples came around.
You were lucky to have a KIM-1! When I were a lad, if we wanted to 'compute' something we had to use a boonch of stones sorted into piles. Lose one and all your calculations go to hell! No manual! No interface! Oh sure, it weren't a hobby computer, but it were a hobby computer to us!
But you try telling the young people of today that, and they won't believe you.
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
I remember a couple of years ago the guys at l0pht set up an Apple ][ web server, just because they could.
Hobbyists do many things more for the joy of doing it than for the practical application.
Piston heads often will spend FAR more time and money on a car to customize or restore it than they could ever make off of selling it when finished.
Gun Collectors will sometimes spend twice as much on a gun and the parts to customize it than that gun will ever be worth.
Geeks will do things the long, and hard way with the computer(s) only because they want to be able to say that "I did this". Even if it would have been cheaper, easier and faster to just buy it that way.
What's the big deal? If it makes you happy, go for it.
-You can cry, but you'll still die. There'll be no tears in the end.