10 Sep
2024
10 Sep
'24
10:41 p.m.
The buyers might be paying a premium because the items came from "the
collection of Paul Allen", and because of the way Christie's described the
lots, they may have come off with the impression that he personally
restored and used all these himself.
This whole thing is so stupid.
Oh well, at least there's now precedent for $50K Altair 8800s. My
retirement is secured.
Sellam
On Tue, Sep 10, 2024, 4:24 PM Paul Koning via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On Sep 10, 2024, at 4:31 PM, Fred Cisin via
cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Tue, 10 Sep 2024, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> Wow, someone paid $56k for a MITS ALTAIR. And $945k for an Apple 1.
Not to mention $718k for an Enigma machine. A bunch of things went for way
above the estimate, while for others it's much closer. One wonders why; I
suppose a possible explanation is "because the auction house doesn't
particularly understand the market for these things".
Any special provenance? (Hitler's personal Enigma?, BillG's' Altair?,
Steve's Apple?)
Nope. But the Enigma is a four-rotor Navy model, not the more common
3-rotor one. I didn't know that the Navy had those; I had heard of 4-rotor
machines only as something the Gestapo used.
Or just multiple bidders on each item, unaware of
more reasonable
sources?
(I think that those prices are high, or the
bidders were)
Seems that way. For that matter, so does $250k for the Xerox Alto, and a
round million for the Cray 1. Not to mention $32k for the Cyber console
display (I would have liked that one, but not at that price!). And perhaps
craziest of all, $189k for a 360/91 console display. Just the lights
panel, nothing more.
paul