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Stay away from tvrsales on ebay

Stay away from tvrsales on ebay

  • I'm grabbing all I can afford.

    Votes: 9 31.0%
  • I'm staying out of this.

    Votes: 20 69.0%

  • Total voters
    29
For their pains this and other world-wide forums are now being used behind their back to libel them and call them "criminals", "thieves", etc. and discuss various ways of destroying their reputation on eBay; is that fair?

I think we are doing a reasonable job of leaving the initial posting here in place, while letting other people express their point of view. It's not one sided in any forum or mailing list where I have seen it discussed.
 
I think people may be jumping to conclusions--name-calling and filling in the blanks isn't productive. What remains unknown to me are the contents of the original lease and the laws for commercial space leasing in that particular jurisdiction. From my own experience, I am aware that rules for commercial space can be quite different from residential space rules.
 
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I think we are doing a reasonable job of leaving the initial posting here in place, while letting other people express their point of view. It's not one sided in any forum or mailing list where I have seen it discussed.
Agreed! (As usual ;-) )

I'm just talking to the people who think Tri-Valley should be harassed, pilloried and crucified because they're giving us a chance to save at least some of Sellam's stuff from the crusher.
 
I think people may be jumping to conclusions--name-calling and filling in the blanks isn't productive.
Agreed, again. But in general there is usually less protection for commercial tenants than residential ones, and once you're in default and especially after an order for possession has been granted the lease terms are usually no longer relevant.

The only real issue for us is whether or not to buy any of this stuff from Tri-Valley, a decision we each have to make according to our individual perceptions and judgements.
 
And along those lines, I would caution everybody else to not jump to conclusions and to remember that there are probably multiple sides to this story. Open/honest discussion here is fine, but it should not become inflammatory.
 
Having read most of this person's letters, it is hard to muster any sympathy for him. Too often self-represented litigants turn themselves into an institutional annoyance. They believe that attorney's are a waste of money or that the wrongs suffered by them are so plain and outrageous that a court just will want to put the landlord in jail and throw away the key. We have no documents from the court or the landlord to determine whether this guy really got a fair shake. Courts do not simply grant relief because so-and-so is being unfair or unreasonable. If a commercial landlord wants a tenant gone, and the tenant is a tenant at will (I recall reading that he was), he can usually give tenant a notice to quit within one rental period's notice. If the end of a lease for a term has arrived, he does not have to renew the lease unless the tenant exercises an option contained in the lease. It may not be fair, make bad business sense, or would destroy a long-term relationship, but that is the landlord's legal right.

It seems this person acquired far many more items than he was capable of handling or disposing. Of the thousands of books and other items, I wonder he had properly curated them or dump them collect in the space like a hoarder. Perhaps the crack in the warehouse wall was impossible to fix because of all the stuff packed up against it made it impossible for a crew to get to it, at least from the inside.

Owing rent to the landlord is not like owing money to your mother or your best friend. You just cannot expect it to accept the arrangement of paying whatever you want, whenever you want. If the lease says $2,500 per month is due and payable on the 1st, and the tenant usually pays by the 15th, the landlord's patience may wear out and he may want the tenant out regardless that the rent was eventually fully paid. Time is money to a landlord, which tenants seem to forget. Why continue to deal with a tardy tenant if you can put a new tenant in the same space who will at least pay the rent on time?

The court is not a soapbox, the judge is not a therapist and the landlord's attorney is not a friend. Do not expect the judge to review completely an extremely lengthy affidavit in support of kind of emergency relief. Judges do not read tales of woe like these and occasionally utter "Oh the Humanity!" or "The Blackguards!".

When a tenant makes an agreement to move out by a certain date and cannot keep to that agreement, why should the landlord to keep giving the more and more time? The landlord has its own business operations that revolve around the tenant's agreement. Or in other words, the world does not revolve around you. The Court is not going to be sympathetic to your difficulties in a commercial relationship, barring a catastrophe. Its the landlord's property and the tenant cannot live there, so the tenant is essentially at the landlord's mercy if he cannot follow the obligations of his agreement.

Ideally, the collection may be worth quite a bit, assuming you always reach the best deal and can actually move the stuff. However, for the big stuff, the market is often limited to the buyer's willingness to drive to pick it up. When it sits there unadvertised and unsold with high asking prices, its not helping the bottom line. Neither the landlord nor the court has to accept your opinion on the value of the collection. It can be difficult to establish the value of non-mainstream collectibles.

A private museum, which is what this guy's collection apparently was, is better off being kept at one's house or in facilities that are actually owned by collector.
 
GH, you must not be familiar with Sellam. Sellam's entire warehouse was vintage computers and software, but not for buying and selling -- he is/was a consultant for legal offices for lawsuits involving prior art, patents, etc. He also rented his hardware out along the same lines, sometimes as props as well.

Regarding his hobby outreach, he organized the first few Vintage Computer Festivals, which have now branched out to VCF East, Midwest, and others. He has always been nice to me personally, giving me vintage/hobby and sometimes legal advice for many years without asking anything in return.

The loss of his hardware and software is essentially the loss of his livelyhood, and because he was partially to blame, it makes the situation all that more tragic. I hope that something amicable can be reached between both parties.
 
Back.

Good to see MikeS has been putting his two cents worth in on this one (he must have a lot of cents - I'd be broke by now if I carried on like that).

While as others have said, we don't know both sides of this story, it reminded me of the ACCRC auction (I can't find the thread but it was a couple years ago) that Sellam was involved with.
You were to bid on the things through the ACCRC, and Sellam was the guy who was going to ship them all out (I think most of it was his stuff that he'd donated to the Alameda something or other).
I won a couple items, waited for them to be shipped, could only get replies to emails very occasionally (like twice out of 10 tries), couldn't get phone calls returned, and eventually got my items about three or four months after winning the auction but only after contacting the ACCRC.
It was the same deal when he was trying to sell some IBM 5151 monitors on CCLIST - he answers the first email, then never replies again - never did get one of those.

So to summarize, while it's not a good thing to happen, I'm not surprised it did.
Things like this will happen to people who procrastinate.

If you've got a rent payment due at the end of he month, check your bank balance now because your landlord has bills he has to pay, and he needs your money to do that (because the bank he deals with, probably won't give him an extra month or two).
 
The loss of his hardware and software is essentially the loss of his livelyhood, and because he was partially to blame, it makes the situation all that more tragic. I hope that something amicable can be reached between both parties.
I wholeheartedly agree... although I have my doubts about if it will happen at this point unless there is some obscure law in his area in regards to commercial rental spaces.

Opinions are like buttholes, everyone has them and most stink :) but even big items seem to move relatively quickly if they're collectable/desirable, and if they're started at low bids. Look at ebaybrad's auctions - he regularly gets pretty amounts on the items that he lists, and he uses the sale of those items to fund his madness! In Sellam's case, that could have been his rent.

I knew that he was involved in CCTalk, and I knew that he was the original organizer of the VCF Festivals, but I didn't know that he was essentially a private museum, consultant, prop renter, etc. I barely even knew of the guy. To me, this is a threefold tragedy.... first, for Sellam, personally. Second, for those that donated their valuable items to him for preservation/education, and finally, for the undoubted loss of some irreplaceable equipment.
 
To me, this is a threefold tragedy.... first, for Sellam, personally. Second, for those that donated their valuable items to him for preservation/education, and finally, for the undoubted loss of some irreplaceable equipment.

I've been following this too. I concur with that statement.

Tez
 
...To me, this is a threefold tragedy.... first, for Sellam, personally. Second, for those that donated their valuable items to him for preservation/education, and finally, for the undoubted loss of some irreplaceable equipment.
Exactly; one that unfortunately could easily have been avoided IMO.

@ Lorne: as you may know Canadian cents are being phased out in three weeks, so I'm getting rid of them while I can:

http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/learn/phasing-out-the-penny-6900002
 
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First of all, I know Sellam and he is my friend. Hopefully he got the really valuable stuff out, nothing on Ebay that I saw is that priceless, so I assume there is a core of the collection safe someplace. No proof to this but that's my instinct.

I know very few vintage computer collectors who have orderly collections. How safe is your collection? There needs to be room in this world for those who simply don't do everything perfectly to keep track of things, and it can get out of control, eh? It does not matter who is right legally, all that matters is that some schmo has a collection of vintage computers and has no idea what they represent, their historical value. This tvrsales does not know how to fix them, and does not know how to preserve them and keep them safe. Does not care about history. That's what hurts. The value of Sellam's collection comes from what it represents intrinsically/historically, not the items' scrap values, or their Ebay values.

Consider this - it's 1996 and Sellam takes the lead to define "vintage computers" as a hobby. He creates vintage.org, and he starts the Vintage Computer Festival. Read VCF 1.0 in 1997 web page, exciting time. Wish I was there at the first VCF. http://www.vintage.org/vcf97/

Up to that point it was the "original" creators and historians who spoke about computer history. Historians did not need the computer itself, or know how to fix and preserve them. Sellam and Eric and Bruce Damer, Jay West, David Greelish, etc. adopted a new perspective. A living history of computers - to save and preserve them. To build a community of like-minded people who seek to share knowledge, hack the hardware and software, and keep them running.

We 3rd gen computer hackers, now in our 40's, were fascinated as kids with the original 70's stuff but were too young and too poor to have more than one computer. We had one computer *if* we were lucky.

SO - Imagine you're in California and it's 1996. Many computer users are finally abandoning their IBM PC's, Commodore 64, Amiga's, CP/M systems because they want to jump from the BBS's to the WWW. These people hate however to throw away their old machines, but they're taking up space. Sellam and others saw this as an opportunity. A perfect way to get computers that were considered meaningful technologically and historically - and for pennies on the dollar to their original cost. Sellam and others began publicizing their rescue and preserve services.

Sellam being in the right place and at the right time - boom - he accumulated the largest collection of vintage computers in the world before a lot of us even knew what "vintage computers" was. Back then old computers were a lot cheaper, there was no Ebay to drive up prices. I am sure Sellam did not expect to accumulate so much so fast. The concept of "vintage computers" was a new thing then and no one then imagined that it would be possible to have a warehouse full of computers when all your life you could only afford one system.

Perhaps one good thing will come from this, having too much stuff can be an albatross around your neck. Perhaps there is such a thing as too much stuff for one person to handle. Makes you think. They're just things anyway. Now Sellam can focus quality time on what's left, should the worst happen and he is not able to retrieve his items. His biggest accomplishment is not having the most computers, it's the fact that he is one of the people who helped establish the hobby. No one can ever take that from him.
 
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This was posted a while back but some additional sellers have cropped up selling some of his gear as well:
appliancealley (now known as "tvrsales2")
martinezana
kaekae_b2011

I'm not sure who they are or if they're the same company trying to hide the sales now but either way, just an fyi.
 
Well, I have been watching the auctions put up by tvrsales ans tvrsales2, and I have to say that there are some folks who are acquiring some great equipment for some great prices. I sincerely hope that the folks who are making these purchases will be cherishing this equipment.

smp
 
If it is they'll be around on eBay for a long long long time ...

I just noticed that tvrsales has a Bernoulli A220 available for dirt cheap - $50. This is the same unit that I have featured here:

http://www.brutman.com/Bernoulli_Box/Bernoulli_Box_A220H.html


That one should not be allowed to slip away ...

To be exact opening BID is ~$50. Assuming no one bids then yes it is cheap, but it could go high very fast! Hopefully, somebody w/ some vintage budget left will be buying it. This year I've seen more of my want/wish list so far then all of last year. I've pretty much blown my budget for the whole year and the month isn't even over yet.... ;)
 
No kidding. They have 2 qty Apple III's that are below the $200 mark right now with ~4 hours left to go. Unheard of, in my experience.

FWIW, I'm watching their auctions... there's probably not much that I'd buy from them, but I'd rather that as much of Sellam's collection get back into the hands of collectors than to resellers/dealers. IMO, that's likely the best that can be hoped for, for the time being...
 
The topic of the thread is "stay away from..." but I think this is the wrong attitude. While it is undesirable to reward the people who are reselling items that used to be in Sellam's possession, I think it would be much more tragic if they didn't sell and went to the crusher/recycler. So I am of the mindset: Buy while you can.
 
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