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Collectors Snap Up Early MP3 Players
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like vintage MP3 portables are the hot new collectible for old radio connoisseurs.
On the cover of this month's edition of Antique Radio Magazine is Sony's first DAP, the Vaio Music Clip. The cover article is the second part of a series showcasing the first players by Sony, RCA, I2Go, and Intel (remember the Pocket Concert?). Part one, which was published in the December 2004 edition, covers the first flash unit the Eiger Labs MPMan F10 (the Rio PMP300 was second), and the first hard drive player the Personal Jukebox PJB-100. CNET also wrote about these first players last January, offering more details on the MPMan and the PJB-100"
These nostalgia cycles are getting shorter and shorter. How much nostalgia can you really have for an outdated piece of hardware that appeared and disappeared 2 years ago?
This is about digital music file players, not just MP3 players. The article even mentions that the first item, the Sony, would not play MP3's.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Mine was good but I forgot to feed it. The conducter died and the remainder of the group disbanded.
Have you metaroderated recently?
"Aah, I remember my first Mac Mini. It was beautiful! All glowy and colorful and nice for the emailing and typing and things. Good times, good times."
"When did you get your Mini, Grandpa?"
"Should be here next Tuesday..."
Who has ever heard of an original SONY Walkman going for collectors prices?
There are some on ebay, for the princely sum of $11, meaning they are just hovering above junk now.
The same thing will probably happen to these 1st gen digital players.
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"Hell! I remember when I listened to Mp3's in 64kb!! They don't encode things like they used to."
*ahem* that one is broken, and it says so in the item description.
i bid on a broken ipod the other day (description clearly stated the unit did not work) in hopes of getting the accessories (esp the charger) for a decent price. i maxed out at 50$, bidding finally ended at 275$.
i wonder how much a _working_ walkman would go for.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Did anyone see the second episode of the new Dr Who series? It was called The End of The World, and the Dr. and his assistant went to the future. WHile there, some future people bring out a jukebox and say "An ancient source of historic music...an IPod!" (or something like that). Kinda funny.
"It is not necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paper work, and the other is nostalgia."
--Frank Zappa
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Registering accounts later than some other chrisb since 1997
I might have missed it skimming through the comments, but it seems odd that no-one's come to the rather obvious conclusion that this isn't about nostalgia- at least, not for most of the people buying them at present.
Put simply, it's about investment. These people have seen the boom in interest in "retro" computing and electronics, reckon that they'll be worth something in the future, so they're snapping them up now, and driving the prices up.
Of course, whether the resultant increase in prices, and people keeping/selling their old players instead of binning them means it is now worth it is debatable. Personally, I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed.
At one stage a few years ago (96-97) I was convinced that 8-bit computers would grow in value as a result of a "retro" nostalgia boom. Well, that was half true, but the simple fact is that, except for the rarer machines (e.g. Sinclair ZX80 in good condition can easily fetch UKP 200.00), most old computers were so widely-produced that they'll never be worth that much. I've seen Sinclair ZX Spectrums in a games-shop window for UKP 100.00, but that's with high-street chain retail mark-up (for lazy nostalgics who can't be arsed getting them on eBay for 30.00). Unless you have one of the rarer models (e.g. short-lived Timex-Sinclair bastardised Spectrum), you're not going to make tons of money without some effort. Ditto the C64.
Back to the subject; is anyone *seriously* getting nostalgic for those silly little 32MB devices that were the first widely-available MP3 players 5 or 6 years back?
Even then, I thought they were rubbish. You'd have been lucky if you could get a whole album at 128Mbps on them, which you had to transfer manually via the (typically?) parallel connection. I was still listening to cassettes back then, and all things considered, they (or portable CD players) were a better bet at the time. The MP3 players were for geeks and "boys toys" gadget freaks.
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