Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000

[Sean Caron]

Just the nature of the beast? There are only so many Paul Allens. I mean,
this is just fun for me, I'm not planning on it paying for my retirement in
40 years, LOL. It seems like most of the guys with the big money to burn
are into cars or something ;) I look at it more, we're all doing a service
to posterity by warehousing this stuff... it's a cost center, not a profit
center. Just picking this stuff up and storing it in their own facilities,
the buyer is incurring their own significant costs in storage space,
packing, moving and trucking, etc.

Does this mean a lot of good equipment that someone could have appreciated
and enjoyed gets cut up for scrap? Definitely. But I don't think collectors
are, on average, deliberately being cheap. Just, disposable income isn't
what it once was for a lot of people; people make an inquiry or an offer...
can't blame someone for asking. If we saw the reversal of 30 years worth of
stagnant wages, I think we'd see prices shoot up on all kinds of stuff,
vintage IT gear included.

Best,

Sean


On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 12:01 PM, William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com>
wrote:

> > It's far better for a potential buyer that the seller thinks he has junk
> > only a scrap dealer is interested in.  Scrap dealers don't pay diddly
> squat.
>
> The problem is that most collectors pay diddlier squat.
>
> --
> Will
>