Slashdot Mirror
Mystery Woman Recycles $200,000 Apple I Computer
Dave Knott writes: A recycling centre in the Silicon Valley is looking for a woman who dropped off an old computer for recycling. The computer was apparently inside boxes of electronics that she had cleaned out from her garage after her husband died. This would be nothing unusual, except that the recycled computer was an Apple I. The recycling firm eventually sold the Apple I for $200,000 to a private collection, and because the company gives 50 per cent of the proceeds from sold items back to the original owner, they wish to split the proceeds with the mystery donor.
I am Spartacus!
And they say we need more women in STEM!!!!
The guy who reportedly "knows what she looks like", will strike a deal with another woman that he trusts.
It's true though. Being very highly intelligent has many difficulties. When people find out just how smart you are a little while after meeting you they kind of distance themselves, they get a weird kinda awe-inspired respect for you. But it comes with a "distancing-effect". Sometimes you want to just let them relate to you as merely peers. But there's always that elephant in the room that you can feel, people knowing your mental capabilities and not knowing how to talk or react (or being worried they'll say something "dumb" in front of me lol, I'm not expecting them to communicate at my level and sometimes even I like to talk about sports or whatever).
I'm not complaining or anything, I wouldn't ever choose to be born without this gift, but it's important that people recognize and understand the strife and alienation that comes along with it.
And seriously, if you can't keep up with the convo, I'm versatile. I can switch between discussing the Large Hadron Colider and the latest news on a football game seamlessly. And I won't judge you. Don't worry.
$200,000 sounds insane for an old computer. OK it's a fairly rare computer that has some historical value, but even a fraction of that amount would be quite high.
Since the donor wanted anonymity, they could just anonymously donate her cut to a charity.
Sadly this kinds of thing happens every day. I'm surprised that a "recycler" even caught it before sending it off to a third world landfill. I dare say any manuals and software the owner had went directly in to the regular trash.
You can't keep it all, but for anything roughly 1980s or earlier vintage, it might be worth at least having a local computer geek taking a look at it before sending off for "recycling". Slashdotters probably already know this, but it would be good if people could get the word out. Big corps have the masses too well trained that anything more than a year or to old must be disposed of.
There are actually whole communities around vintage gear. If anyone has questions trying to identify old hardware or software, feel free to drop in at http://www.vintage-computer.co... and ask!
I think I may have found her.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
...who left the Apple I computer please form a line at the door.
There was probably lots of other interesting stuff in the boxes recycled. Likely things a lot more interesting and obscure than an Apple board.
They didn't recycle anything, they just sold it on as whole. Had they been fully honest, they would have returned it to her, letting her know what it was worth.
And they say we need more women in STEM!!!!
We do. We need more people in STEM generally, even if it results in too many people in STEM, because it's a lot better to have people trained to think rationally than not.
I've watched enough episodes of all kinds of shows like 'Pickers' and 'Salvage Hunters' in addition to my own experience to know that you'd not believe what stuff you have laying around in your garage or on your property that's worth money and it doesn't have to be a long lost Vermeer, the hitherto unknown seventh production Bugatti Royale or a Ming vase.
And I've actually owned an auction company in years gone by and I can assure you that almost all of the stuff people have lying around their garage is genuinely garbage or at best not worth much. Certainly not worth the hassle of trying to sell it on eBay in most cases. People tend to think old = valuable but in most cases that simply isn't true. Yes, sometimes you run across a genuine treasure but that is a seriously rare occurrence.
Shows like American Pickers are ludicrously unrealistic except in the sense that a lot of people who deal in secondhand goods (read junk) are seriously weird people. I've had to deal with a lot of them first hand. Some of the strangest people I've ever met. Some nice, some not so much, but rarely what you or I would consider "normal".
My sister even cleaned out her house last year, put the junk into one big box and flogged most of it on ebay for just under £200. The biggest problem you have when cleaning out a house or a property is not making money off of what might seem like junk at first glance, it's finding a dealer who isn't going to rip you off if you don't have time to sell your junk yourself.
A decent part of my auction business was estate sales. If you don't want to go to the trouble of doing it yourself (which is VERY reasonable - it's a huge pain) then just accept the fact that you'll get something out of it but probably not the maximum possible. Get a separate person to appraise what is in the estate if you are concerned about being ripped off. Bear in mind that this will cost money. You hire someone to liquidate estate assets because you want to have a life and doing this is HUGELY time consuming. It's ok if the estate sale person/company makes a decent or even handsome profit. You'll avoid a huge time sink and you'll get some money you wouldn't have had otherwise. If you want certain items from the estate just set them aside ahead of time.
Really depends on the electronics. I worked at an electronics junk shop for a few years and we had this big scrap bin for junk that we thought was scrap. I look in it one day and I see like 7 PDP8 Omnibus boards. Thing is I didn't know what they were, I just knew the electronics on them was dated in the late 70's. I am sure thats what happened here with the Apple 1.
But yea. Your right about the second hand pickers. Out here in east Texas, some of these collectors are just wierd:P But there must be some money in it with all the "antique stores" out here
What I get from shows like American pickers is that if you are not selling to the end collector then you have to leave significant profit for the dealer. It sounds like 50% of the final price is a fair percentage.
50% is a fairly typical division of the sales revenue for anything sold on consignment. Sometimes it's more, sometimes less. For random household items anything from 35%-50% is generally reasonable. The more expensive the item the lower the commission tends to be. Nobody (sane) is going to give a dealer half the sale price of a $30,000 car for example - 10% or so would be typical or maybe even a flat fee. 50% may sound like a lot but unless you are talking about big ticket items it really isn't, especially for anyone who employs staff.
If you are auctioning something it can vary but usually there are two important fees. A lot of auction houses will demand a buyer's premium of something like 10-20% and then a percentage of the final gavel price to the seller, typically something like another 10-20%. A lot of commissions will ratchet the percentage down as the sales price rises so it might be 20% for the first $100,000 and 15% on the amount above $100,000. I once auctioned a Lear Jet for example and we got a flat fee plus 3% since the asking price was around $3 million.
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, it is basically impossible to make a reasonable profit selling stuff on consignment through eBay. eBay is too labor intensive and takes too large a commission to make it worthwhile. Furthermore eBay themselves are not easy to work with, particularly their "security" people. I speak from first hand experience. You can only make money on eBay doing liquidations of inventory/assets or by being a specialty dealer in a very narrow range of goods you can get for unusually good prices.
Sounds like it could be a divorce.
Let me know when the check is ready, please.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Does Steve Wozniak have an ex getting rid of old crap she got in the divorce?