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.
Makes me wonder if there's specific case law for this kind of thing though, pretty sure it's happened before, and some people are likely to take it to court instead of accepting the involuntary donation
There is plenty of case law precedent to prevent her from successfully wining anything. She voluntarily dropped the equipment off at a recycling location. Just because she had no idea that it was valuable doesn't mean she is entitled to protection from her own ignorance. Contrary to popular belief, the laws are not intended to protect stupid people from doing stupid things to themselves.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
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.