Estate sales?

[Dave Farquhar]

Anyone here hunt vintage computers at estate sales?

I'm on the prowl every Saturday, but there are a lot of things I look for. Today I got some computer gear, but it was modern stuff--a Logitech USB optical moose (I gave away my spare, so it was good to replace it) and a gigabit switch.

There've been several times in the last year that I've uncovered caches of vintage computers. One was obviously the neighborhood mad scientist, and among other things, he had several highly modified Timex-Sinclar ZX-81s. Another sale uncovered an Apple IIgs and some old Macintoshes (not my area of interest, so I passed). And there was one sale where I found tons of PC stuff in a basement, ranging from 386 to Pentium, all AT stuff. I picked up a couple of IBM Model M keyboards there. (I never, but never pass up a Model M.)

The difficulty with this is that I can't think of anything in the ads for those sales that would have hinted to the presence of vintage computers. Most people assume old computers are junk, so if a computer is advertised, it's most likely a recent Dell or HP. Presumably a lot of older computers end up junked rather than put in the sale.

I do think estate sales have promise as hunting ground though. In 1989-91 when I was calling bulletin boards, I knew a lot of 40-somethings who had extensive computer collections. Those guys are getting up in years, and some of those guys never got rid of anything.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

 

[Darshevo]

I too have had good luck with estate sales. My most memorable was one where a fellow had done a bunch of ham radio stuff. His nice equipment was all in the front room and priced %50 more than ebay. However, in a shed in the back yard was a pile of old commodore stuff as well as boxes upon boxes of vacuum tubes. It wasn't a case if them outrightly giving the stuff away out back, but I did leave with a pretty nice collection of C= hardware for $20. Sadly, at the time I had no idea of the value in the tubes. Seems like it was something in the range of $100 for all of them, and it came with a sylvania (I think) tube display with a tester built into it. I collect a little of everything, and have picked up several pieces of odd old gear (franklins, IIc's, Tandy, etc) for next to nothing at sales

-Lance

 

[Unknown_K]

Never got into estate sales, from what I heard most things of value were sold before the sale and they use the sale to get rid of the junk. Gnerally they have them when somebody dies and they want to empty the house from the junk nobody in the family has interest in. Now you are correct most people thing old computers are junk (but consoles are collectable) so you might get lucky if an old collector kicks the bucket. Still I would think most large computer caches are probably people with hoarding issues and you end up with 120 C64s that are not complete or working. Too bad garage sales suck anymore, it is the season for them.

 

[Dave Farquhar]

Never got into estate sales, from what I heard most things of value were sold before the sale and they use the sale to get rid of the junk.

That can be true. It depends on who's doing the sale. Pre-sales do happen, if only to cut down on theft. I could tell you some stories about theft...

Some of them in particular are likely to do pre-sales, where they invite their best/favorite customers to come in a few days before the sale to buy. I've never been invited to such an event; we "outsiders" speculate on what it takes to get on that list. Generally it seems to be the guys who've been frequenting their sales for years or decades, and who've been known to spend a lot. And most of them have specialties.

Where I live, there are maybe a dozen or two companies who do the majority of sales. Each definitely have their own personality, as far as how they price things, whether they do pre-sales, and even the kinds of things you'll find in their sales. Some of them are pretty uppity, specializing in the estates of executives, professionals, and the generally wealthy. On the other extreme, I can think of two in particular who are definitely, shall I say, low-tier. The uppity types are the ones more likely to regard old computers as junk. If you find a computer at one of their sales, it'll be a recent HP or Dell sporting a large LCD monitor. I've found and bought various bits and pieces at the low-tier sales before.

Sometimes sales are run by the family itself, rather than by a company. Those can be especially good. I've scored some good console gear at sales like that, for not much money.

I've wondered about giving them a card and telling them I know a lot about vintage computers. But I'm afraid of giving them the impression that old computers are worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, you know? So I haven't ever done that. But on the other hand, I wonder how much good stuff gets trashed.