collectors vs. enthusiasts

From: Mark Green <mark_at_cs.ualberta.ca>
Date: Wed Oct 13 18:14:44 1999

>
>
> On 13 Oct 1999, Eric Smith wrote:
>
> > In response to my rant:
> > > That's because eBay is where "collectors" hang out. Not people like us,
> > > for whom collector is an insufficient/inaccurate term.
> >
> > Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk> replied:
> > > Agreed. I maintain that I am _not_ a computer collector. Sure I have a
> > > number of old computers around the place. But I have them to learn about
> > > (how they work, etc), to restore, to use, etc.
> >
> > For want of a better word to describe what we do (as opposed to "collect"),
> > I used enthusiast. But if anyone has a better suggestion, I think it is
> > quite useful to make this distinction.
>
> Maybe what you are thinking of would be more along the lines of
> "speculator" or "investor"...
>

I agree with this. I think the people on this list are at
one end of the collector spectrum. They want all of their
machines to be working and usable.

I think the real difference is with the people who view old
computers as an investment, and these are the people who are
driving the prices crazy on eBay. They think they are going
to go up dramatically in value over the short term. This
spoils it for the people who are really interested in collecting,
since it makes it that much harder to get things.

Back quite a few years ago I was an avid book collector (I
actually read the books too, so maybe I was an enthusiast :-)).
Every 6 months or so there would be reports in the paper about
the selling price of some rare book at an auction. After that
there would be a bunch of "investors" at the local auctions
bidding up all the books over 10 years old! They would gladly
pay 10 to 100x the real value of the books thinking they
were getting a real bargain. The sad thing about it is you
knew those books would never return to the market, none of
the investors would admit that they made a mistake and would
hold on to them until they died. This was a real problem
for collectors. Do you bid against them, so you can get the
book you need, which will just move the market up more. Or,
ignore them, and loose the chance the complete part of your
collection.

I think we are seeing some of the same thing in computers,
and eBay (and other auction sites) make it easy for them.
Hopefully this is just a passing fad. If enough of these
"investors" get burned they may not return.

-- 
Dr. Mark Green                                 mark_at_cs.ualberta.ca
Professor                                      (780) 492-4584
Director, Research Institute for Multimedia Systems (RIMS)
Department of Computing Science                (780) 492-1071 (FAX)
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada
Received on Wed Oct 13 1999 - 18:14:44 BST

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