Top 10 Holy Grails of Classic Microcomputer Collecting

From: William Donzelli <william_at_ans.net>
Date: Wed Oct 7 23:09:08 1998

> By that arguemnt, a built heathkit (or whatever) has little/no historical
> value. And that's something that I don't accept.

Today, if you build a classic (1950-60s) Heathkit, you really are changing
the piece in a drastic way - probably more so than doing anything else to
it. But building a classic Heathkit back in the 1950-60s _built_ the
historic fabric associated with the kits! And there are _plenty_ of
examples of built Heathkits out there, with all sorts of historic fabric
just ready to be enjoyed - crummy joints, burnt wires, "improvements",
notes from the builder, etc.. Same with Altairs...

> The financial arguement is possibly bogus.

Sure, you can get LOTS of enjoyment out of building a kit - so much that
you probably can not put a value on it. From a purely accounting view,
however, an unbuilt Altair, all complete and virgin, would fetch how much?
Would anyone like to guess? My guess would be over $5,000. How many built
Altairs could you buy for that much?

William Donzelli
william_at_ans.net
Received on Wed Oct 07 1998 - 23:09:08 BST