Big dollars paid for Altair 8800 on Ebay

Take a look at item #8707485844 http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8707485844&rd=1&a… which ended on Thursday. It went for USD $7,877.11 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. My question to all is that was the unit more valuable (because of the low 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. I suppose the buyer is going to restore the original MITS cards as it was 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. Gary Fisher Tristone Capital Inc. This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged 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.