It is, perhaps, an honorable sentiment, what you suggest, Tony, but not
practical if you expect your hobby to help support itself.
What you mustn't overlook, however, is that removing the parts that might be of
interest will, in most cases, not reduce the scrapper's interest in the box,
since it's the metal that interests him, and removing the cables, boards, and
dissimilar metals reduces his profit, since he's got to pay for the labor.
That's a way to get spare parts.
There's probably a way to work with rather than against the scrap salvage guy.
He doesn't get much for the boards, drives, etc, since there is too much labor
in separating the types of metals, the purity of which determines the salvage
value, it's easier for him to let you have the boards, cables, drives, etc, so
he can sell or scrap the sheet metal.
That may not seem very appealing, but it seems a potential compromise.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Duell" <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: Ebay horror ...
> >
> > >I'm so mad. I'm watching on Ebay now as a greedy seller takes
> > >apart a PCjr, and parts out the individual pieces for obscene
> > >amounts of money compared the the cost of an intact system
> >
> > Funny I was just thinking about posting a message on this dilemma. The
> > sorry fact is that the market for parts far exceeds the market for systems
> > on almost EVERY cheap heavy thing that exists. Either we bite the bullet
>
> I think what it comes down to is 'are you in this for the money, or
> because you enjoy repairing/using old computers'.
>
> In my case I couldn't care less about the financial value of any of my
> machines. If they all became worthless overnight I wouldn't care. I
> collect these machines because I enjoy working on them, enjoy using them,
> enjoy learning about them. Money would not provide that enjoyment -- you
> can't program a bank statement, you can't connect a logic analyser to a
> dollar bill. :-)
>
> Because of this, I'd not sell many of my machines no matter how much I
> was offered. And if I ever got to the point where, for whatever reason I
> couldn't carry on enjoying them, I would sell them _intact_ to a fellow
> enthusiast. I can assure you that if a scrap dealer offered me \pounds
> 100 for a machine and a collector offered me \pounds 20, the collector
> would get it. No question about it.
>
> -tony
>
>
Received on Tue Jun 12 2001 - 03:54:56 BST