Whats wrong with chip collecting?

From: Bob Shannon <bshannon_at_tiac.net>
Date: Sun Nov 17 10:06:00 2002

Its clear that there is friction between the worlds of vintage computer
collecting and chip collectors.

A disinterested party would probably assume that these two islands of
peoples would be highly interdependant and mutually supportive, but
commonly this is not the case at all.

I recently exchanged a number of emails with several chip collectors
regarding a very rare RCA 1801 chip set. I have to say that dealing
with the chip collectors left me very confused. I do think that there
are some problems in the chip collecting community as a whole.

This is not to say that there is anything intrinsically wrong with
collecting old and rare chips in itself. But the current ways in which
values are assigned to chips is very wrong, and this does lead to the
destruction of rare parts in some cases.

As an example, one collector lists a RCA 1801 chip set at $1,500, for a
pair of IC's that have never been soldered onto a board, and are in
unknown functional condition. These same collectors will turn their
noses up at a much earlier, much less common RCA 1801 CPU assembly that
is unused new old stock.

So vastly more value is placed on the fact that the parts 'look' new
than their actual rarity, or even the fact that RCA shipped and sold
this processor as a CPU assembly on a tiny PCB. Apparently the true
historical context of the 1801 CPU is less important than appearance,
and the same appears to be true of its functional condition as well.
 The fact that RCA soldered the part onto a module lowers the value to a
greater degree than its rarity increases it, despite the fact that this
is what the part is for, or the implications on the functionality of the
parts? This is not an easy position to defend.

I'm sure most would agree that a NOS CPU board is far more likley to be
functional that a pair of never-been-soldered chips. So we see that at
least in this case, appearance is more highly valued that actual rarity
or functionality, and even moreso that the true historical perspective
of the devices themselves.

If we were to look at a similar collectable item, and the needed parts
to keep that collectable running, we find an excellent parallel in
antique pocket watches. Here is a collectable item that holds value,
and appreciates much like many vintage computers do today. The parts
are no longer made, and some parts wear and fail during normal operation
much like our vintage hardware does.

Most of the stocks of repair parts for antique pocket watches come from
new old stocks found in various locations, but some people are forces to
scavenge parts from other non-working watches. Some people actually
collect repair parts for these facinating vintage machines, but only for
the purpose of restoring and repairing the watches, and not because the
parts themselves are assigned value seperate from the watch that uses them..

Mainsprings will fail, they are in effect, consumable parts (often
lasting for decades, but still consumable). New replacement mainsprings
for a turn-of-the-century Waltham watch are no longer made and are
becomming rather rare. Has the price of vintage Waltham mainsprings
shot upwards?

No, not much at all, because at time goes by, fewer and fewer vintage
Waltham's cross watchmakers benches for repair. Value is based on
supply and demand in a simple and rational way. One good reason for
this is that there is zero practical value to collecting pocet watch
parts unless they are going to be used in repairing pocket watches, and
so the watch parts collectors are the same watchmakers who perform the
repairs.

This is not how chip collecting is working today at all. Collectors are
collecting chips, yet are commonly disinterested in collecting the
machines that actually use these parts. Lacking and practical grounding
(or worse, electrical grounding) in the practical context of the parts,
their perceptions of value are often highly distorted to the point of
being flat-out wrong.

But its clear that the development of the chip is a far more important
historical development than the many innovations in pocket watch design,
so the chip by itself has taken on an aura of collectability that just
does not reflect its actual value or historical context. One can
imagine that 50 years from now, someone might view an early
microprocessor chip with some respect, while today no one is going to be
impressed with a mainspring from a watch.

But a fully operational vintage pocket watch will still be far far more
interesting than a dusty old chip of unknown (or unknowable) functional
condition.

Taking the analogy between vintage computers and antuique watches a step
further, the situation we have today is as if the watchmakers (people
reparing old machines) and those collecting the parts needed for those
repairs are seperate groups (at least in part), and the parts collectors
are trying to assign value to the parts independantly from the value of
the machines needing those parts.

So maybe chip collector #1 has a C8080 rather than a C8080A. Fine, so
what? If its just a chip sitting around its far less interesting
(historically) than any sort of 8080 thats actually running. This is no
different than a old but rather common pocket watch in perfect running
condition being more valuable than a much rarer pocket watch in poor
condition that does not run and needs parts that are not available.

Also once that C8080 is placed into a collection of other 8080 CPU's,
its going to be assigned a higher value, 'Oh, I cannot sell just that
one, it would break up the set'. This only further distorts the
perception of value issue running through the chip collecting community,
and further seperates the parts from the machines that use them.

So what (in my opinion) is wrong with chip collecting? Simply put,
vintage chip collecting as a seperate activity from the repair of
vintage hardware only serves to distort the value of the parts
themselves at the expense of those who do restore vintage hardware.
 Based on every other collectable I'm aware of, the functional whole
item is always more valuable than the parts it contains. Either chip
collectors need to get a grip on their misperceptions of value, or
vintage machine collectors need to greatly re-assess the values of their
operational hardware.

Probably equal measures of both are in order.
Received on Sun Nov 17 2002 - 10:06:00 GMT