to a valid non-profit (501C3?), then the amount that you can deduct is what you paid for it; EXCEPT,... if you had had it for over a year before making the donation, then you can deduct the "fair market value". I paid the usual $10 for a Centronics 101 printer. A few years later, I donated it to City College of San Francisco. (They NEEDED a printer for their TRS-80s that could withstand heavy use and abuse) The IRS was perfectly content with my taking a $1000 tax deduction, although, if I were to have made the donation within the first year after I bought it, they would only have permitted the $10.