Practical question on valuation of old systems

In article <200611161809.kAGI9gsb075130 at keith.ezwind.net>, "Bob" <caveguy at sbcglobal.net> writes: That's an interesting question. The insurance valuation should be for the replacement cost, which for a hard to find item could be pricey. The estate tax valuation should probably be lower as here the consideration is what you would get if you tried to sell it, not what it would cost to replace it. I'm thinking in many cases the money I'd get from selling what I have would be much less than the money I'd need to replace it. It sounds weird, but you may need to pay more to replace something than there is interest in purchasing the same item In order for this to be useful, it has to be *actual* price data not what people "think" something should cost. The latter is a highly subjective evaluation and you will find many of those in "Collectible Microcomputers" where I see that on ebay, things *never* go for the lowball price listed in that book. The former is the kind of thing you see on ebay. It may not jibe with your subjective evaluation, but it *is* an actual price that someone paid (assuming no shill bidders). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>