On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:03:56 +0000, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: Goodwill has a mission to sell refurbished and gently used goods at whatever price the market will bear, in order to finance jobs and rehabilitation for economically, physically, mentally, or otherwise disadvantaged individuals. As part of that process, it is their duty to try and eliminate all risks inherent in the resale of donated goods (in this case, classic or neo-classic computers). In that, it is becoming increasingly difficult to reliably destroy all possibly sensitive data and to eliminate all potentially hazardous parts; therefore many Goodwills are simply refusing computer donations at this point. It should also be noted that many individuals regard Goodwill as a dumping ground for broken trash. While it is true that one man's trash can sometimes be another man's treasure, for the most part every man's trash is just that. For all these reasons and more, Goodwills across the world are having an increasingly hard time dealing with outmoded technology, and some must needs simply wash their hands of the whole mess. David H. Barr Sys / Net Admin. Oklahoma Goodwill Industries, Inc. PS: Not offended or preaching; just advocating an alternate viewpoint.

There *are* charidee shops here that will take in 'pre-loved' computer gear, St.Oswalds being the first one that springs to mind....I did quite well out of our local branch when I was unemployed and became their sort of 'expert' on what to give to me and what to put in the local auctions :) a

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: Charity shops in the US are increasingly not carrying computer goods, mainly because if they end up being unsaleable crap they have to pay high disposal fees. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

It must be the area you live in, I have gotten Sun's, Next's, Vax, HP's, AS400's and missed on some SOL's plus a few other S100 systems at my local Goodwill. John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chad Fernandez" <fernande at internet1.net> To: <General at internet1.net>; "and Off-Topic Posts" <"Discussion at internet1.net"@cnc.net:On-Topiccctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 1:05 PM Subject: Re: Rare Apples, eBay, Goodwill

Chad Fernandez wrote: With all this talk of Goodwill (and thank you for educating me, guys!), I decided to check one out. They had lots of computer equipment on the shelves, but it broke down thusly: 50% 15" VGA monitors 30% Packard Bell or other similar trash PCs 10% keyboards 5% Printers (all inkjet) 5% Software (mostly games, early CDROM junk, the few good ones were incomplete) I'll keep checking every month, though. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005, Keys wrote: Wow, and I thought I had no life... -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

They moved it to St. Paul and called G-TOO, I think it's still open but it's not the same. They auction off the computer stuff in silent auctions. Most times they never bring it out because of the fights there. ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Layer" <william.layer at comcast.net> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 10:00 PM Subject: Re: Rare Apples, eBay, Goodwill

David H. Barr wrote: Me personally, I won't pay over a dollar a diagonal inch for anything under 17" monitors unless it is in particular good condition or desirable by me (for example, an IBM CGA monitor that is quite clean and working, or a specific Dell 14" fixed-frequency monitor that matches my Dell 386sx16 case, keyboard, and mouse... etc.) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/

Hi, Scott Stevens said: I was in the same position when my (Samsung) EGA monitor died (now fixed...) and I came across a _mono_ ega monitor, labelled "Indus", that apparently came from some point-of-sale installation, which stood in in the meantime. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this!

If they work for you, then that's fine. I've had way too many odd hardware problems and general incompatibility with Packard Bell clones that I've completely stopped touching them, let alone use them. About the only thing Packard Bell did right was bundle Geoworks Ensemble instead of Windows, but that is where I'll end my involvement in this thread. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005, Chad Fernandez wrote: I suggested the price guide, and the price guide I specifically suggested was Michael Nadeau's _Collectible Microcomputers_. I assisted with the editing of the pricing in that book, and I regularly appraise all manner of computer collectibles for varied purposes, and I'm pretty sure everyone here knows my feelings about eBay by now (summary: eBay bad), so it should most certainly go without saying that the book does NOT proffer "eBay" prices. Looking up a computer model in a price guide and picking a price out of the price range suggested, or in the very least using it as a general guide for selecting a price is, I believe, a few steps below designing rockets. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005, Chad Fernandez wrote: Since Goodwill gets offered so much of this stuff and then refuses because they don't think they can sell it, I was offering a suggested solution (to a GW representative of sorts) on how they might do it. If you want to see old computers sold for cheap through Goodwill, why not offer solutions also? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005, Chad Fernandez wrote: I don't want to speak for Goodwill, and this thread is pretty much a nuisance by now, but this is naive and unrealistic. You're right that "almost all of it should sell", but there's only so much shelf space, there's only so much time you're willing to have crap cluttering your shelves, and there's only so much profit (or none at all, or even a loss) in the prices it would take to sell most of the PC crap that comes through the door. Goodwill stores are not setup to sell used commodity PC dreck. The whole purpose of suggesting the price guide was to sort out the GEMS field guide to understand what you have), then choose an appropriate price. Retail sales is more complicated than this. So using a price guide to identify specific computers that already has a suggested price range to choose from is too complicated, but sending out a "summary sheet" to all the stores that asks the same employees you just finished saying aren't capable of utilizing a price guide to apply totally subjective rules to select and price computers is not? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

Vintage Computer Festival wrote: How can any loss from selling something cheap, be more expensive than tossing it? If it's tossed, there is zero money coming in, and the trash load is higher. Goodwill sells commodity PC stuff all the time, locally. If it's cheap enough, it will sell.....thats not naive and unrealistic. Shelf space could be a problem, but that will vary greatly store by store. Goodwill makes money by selling volume. The more they sell the better. The product is free, the cost is lights, heat, ac, labor, trash disposal, etc. They're all pretty much fixed, unless donations skyrocket. Labor may change a bit, if the outgoing product is changed I don't believe the majority of Goodwill employees have the interest, knowledge, patience, or time to go looking in a book for every computer that goes through Goodwill, only to find out that it's only worth $10, or it's not in the book, or to have it priced at $150, but only worth $15 because they mis-identify it, and they have to get a rack of jeans out on the sales floor. A sheet of guide lines can tell them, the monitors a small one, it's clean, and it says Trinitron, $15... bam they're done, next item. Let's see, it says Mac, the screen is part of it, it's pretty dirty, $10, bam done, next item. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA

Vintage Computer Festival wrote: Do you refer to taxes? I don't see how selling something cheaply is more cost effective than throwing the same item out. As far as college..... already busy with Differential Equations and Physics. I haven't seen it. I was actually pondering that a bit over dinner. I don't see them as going obselete that quickly. We're talking bottom of the market, here. Prices don't change that quickly at that point. They don't need to check all that, it's only a $5, 10, or $15 monitor. If they checked all that the cost would go up, and they wouldn't be able to sell it. My local Goodwill store actually allow returns, btw. If I were to buy a monitor that didn't work, I'd have seven days to return it, as long as I had my reciept, so in a way my local Goodwill turns me into the testing person, whcih doesn't cost them. I think most places around here just toss them. I realize your in CA, and you have more restictions. Thinking back at our previous comments to each other. I think we are both assuming different situations of use of the guide and application of the guide. I'm assuming mostly older PC stuff with occasionally something interesting, where the unilateral application of the guide would be useless. Maybe you are assuming a higher percentage of interesting items, and the application of the guide only when the employee recognizes it as a non-PC, or at least something out of the ordinary? If the second case is closer to your position, maybe both of us are right (potentially)..... my way for the PC stuff, your way for the more interesting stuff. We probably should close off this thread, as it is kind of off-topic now. That being said, I have enjoyed it. If you want to fire back once more, send it ito me directly.

Best thing anyone has said to an OT... ever. John A.

BTW if people in the NY,NJ,CT,MA area are looking for such things let me know. I regularly route 1~3 of them a month to charity, typically with a working P1 system. John A.

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: I'm seeing this here in our area as well. Salvation Army policy is "no computers" since early this year. Steve

All the "Goodwill" stores here in Houston carry computer items and so do the ones in the TwinCities (MN). John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Leonard" <trixter at oldskool.org> To: <General at cnc.net>; "Discussion at cnc.net:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, March 21, 2005 11:47 AM Subject: Re: Rare Apples, eBay, Goodwill

GoodWill is a proper noun.... it is the name. I think it's a US only organization. If your outside th US, that's why you've never seen one. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA Jim Leonard wrote:

At 09:37 AM 3/22/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: That's true around here, too. There are also non-Goodwill charity shops with their own (different) policies. I think all of these places suffer (from out collecting perspective) from subjective or uninformed policies about all goods - not just computer stuff. I see some charity shops run by senior-citizen volunteers around here who routinely toss what they consider to be "junk" (like old household goods) yet would fetch a good price if they marketed them correctly. I routinely see graniteware (speckled-paint metal pans) and other 100-year-plus tin items in the dumpster. Meanwhile, they're trying to sell 15-year-old mono monitors for $15. But as with all of these places, eBay now serves as a convenient metric to help determine what's valuable and what price to put on the tag. If there's a name on the label, they can search for it. - John

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 07:37:15 -0800 (PST) Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> wrote: Don't make the mistake of not knowing that Goodwill Industries is privately owned. It's a non-profit, but it's a privately held business.

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005, jim stephens wrote: What "idiot" decided that lead and mercury were toxic to humans and were leeching into the water tables? Probably an informed one. Recycling companies in California (and elsewhere) have been charging people to drop off monitors for at least 4 years now. Guess what? People are paying the fees and not bitching. Furthermore, I don't see any televisions or monitors dumped in fields. Your belated prediction hasn't panned out. Most people realize it's for the good of the environment and ultimately their health and well-being. That's surely worth a measley $10, no? The fee was initially instituted by companies when the state declared CRTs as hazardous waste. It took years of bungling for California to finally come up with a plan to reimburse recyclers for their time and expense in recycling CRTs so that consumers could recycle monitors without having to pay a fee. Now, whenever you buy a new computer, you pay an additional recycling fee for the display. In 5 or so years, when you're ready to upgrade or toss the display, you are supposed to just be able to take it somewhere and drop it off. It works kind of in the same way that bottle and can recycling does. Unfortunately, the program is probably not going to work and it's going to take a while to iron out some serious bugs (this is what happens when the morons we "elect" to represent us cave in to special interests rather than acting in the public interest). Goodwill and other thrift stores never charged for taking stuff. As we've been discussing, they used to take in computers and monitors but when it started to cost them to dispose of the stuff they couldn't sell they stopped taking them. As far as I know, Goodwill was never in the business of CRT dismantling (although they could and should be in my opinion). Lastly, the CRT (whole and undamaged) is actually more valuable than the electronics. Unless the monitor still works, the electronics are almost worthless. I wouldn't be so dramatic. True, they would represent a hassle for someone who had to dispose of them in the event of one's untimely demise. But it's no different than figuring out what to do with any of the contents of one's home when one passes. Some stuff you can sell; some you can throw away at no cost; and other stuff you have to pay to get rid of. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]