Big dollars paid for Altair 8800 on Ebay

At 06:51 AM 10/21/05 -0600, you wrote: e=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1 Isn't that amazing? JC Wren had one with a load of other classic computers and the high bid was only about $2100! for a supposedly serial number 3 unit, run up by bidders from Switzerland, the US and finally the UK. It had been heavily modified internally, with even a hard disk inside. serial number) than a later unit that had all of the original MITS cards, motherboard and powersupply? My experience with car collectors (Corvettes), is that a unit in stock factory condition is more valuable than one that has been heavily modified. IMO ALL of the Altairs have been modified since they were sold only as kits. Yes you COULD buy assembled one but MITs still took a kit and just assembled it for you. To my knowledge none of them were build on an assembly line. Even MITs changed parts and revised the boards frequently so even the basic kits weren't all the same. On top of that, the user had to buy or build their own memory and I/O cards and the like (everything except the CPU card and chassis) so it's virtually certain that no two Altairs were identical even when they were new. And some mods such as a bus terminator were mandatory in order to make them work. Then considering that these were leading edge technology at the time and that they were constantly being hacked on and upgraded by their owners I would expect all of the surviving ones to be very different. I expect that 3rd party cards vs original MITs cards would detract from their value but not to the extend that 3rd party mods would to a collector's car. I suppose a better comparision would be a 1930s Duesenburg or some other car that were ALL build to order and no two were the same. Joe ('70 Hemi SuperBird, '70 440 6-pak Dodge Challanger RT Convertible, '70 Plymouth Baracuda, '68 Dodge Charger ....) first available, or is he going to keep it intact as it was sold to him? It would be interesting (to me) to know peoples collecting philosophies about that. information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. Unless otherwise stated, opinions expressed in this e-mail are those of the author and are not endorsed by the author's employer.