Help with pricing on vintage computers?

Sellam wrote... I would suspect that if someone paid it, it is "a" market. But not of one, it's a market of all the people who bid on it, or wanted to but got scared off by the price. Of course it's not the only market. Because the science is WRONG. Period. If "established" practice says an item is worth say $10, but most of those items sell for $100 on ebay, then, well, yeah, the science is flat wrong - at least as far as predicting what an item is worth in terms of dollars that people will pay for it. Well, ok, maybe the science is right in theory, but in practice, it's just plain wrong. We totally agree on this point. But look at the bigger picture. For you, in your particular geography with your particular circle of friends, a given system may be easy to find. For someone else, in their geographical area, in their circle of friends, that system just can't be found. So who says your "ability to acquire" should set a more "valid" price than the ability of others to acquire the same item? Most of us here are fairly long time collectors. Most of us have our sources, and know just what dumpster to dive in or what scrap metal dealer to go to in order to find something. We are NOT the norm. Other people who have just a passing interest, or aren't collectors but just want one particular old system, don't have those resources. I suspect that as far as a head count goes, they are in the majority. Their ability to acquire should be given a higher weight. Perhaps. But I suspect that most of us are more concerned with "what am I going to have to pay to get that one missing card from my xyz system to get it up and running", than "wonder what a museum would pay for my system". That's us... and for the non-collectors, when they ask about prices it's because they want to know what they can get for it, and ebay prices should be included in that type of valuation. Anyways... here's my own personal paradigm for what it's worth. I vastly prefer to trade or just plain give away excess stuff for free, among collectors where I suspect it won't get hung on a wall, it'll get used. However, from time to time I DO have to pay what I consider to be STUPID amounts of money for something I need and can't find. I have to pay this to ebay or to old equipment vendors. As a result, once in a while, as much as I dislike it, I have to sell a classic computer on ebay to cover my real $$$ costs to get a system up and running. Just my own 2 millidollars worth. Jay West --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]