90Q
Member
5150s are very common: Craigslist is full of them.
until you turn around, then suddenly! same fate
5150s are very common: Craigslist is full of them.
Perhaps. But a spread of USD 10s to 100s is not a big deal really. I do not see the IBM 5150 going for astronomical prices like some vintage computers.until you turn around, then suddenly! same fate
So many 5150s were produced over the years that scarcity is really not that much an issue. In addition, once collectible values go up, supply also goes up. There is a certain threshold at which people are willing to ship rather than trash when there is no local buyer.I don't have a 5150, just a clone. Still what people on this website own or can get is probably not common to all collectors. From my point of view a few mailing lists and forums seem to have a large concentration of hoarders/dealers/long term collectors that know their stuff fairly well (industry insiders). How rare a 5150 is going to be (and what value it has) will be decided if/when the new collectors start buying stuff. Collecting is a pyramid scheme anyway, as long as new money keeps coming in in a large enough volume prices will rise. If you don't have a growing hobby then all the stuff will get recycled as prices drop to a point where selling them is not cost effective, or scrap value is worth much more then hobby money (melting 486 chips and PPros for gold is an example currently).
Perhaps. There are still many people who keep stuff. There are 350.000.000 people in the US so that is a lot of storage.Very few people are going to continue keeping a 30 year old machine that is worth little to nothing now (when will it be worth selling 30 fears after the owner is dead?). Recycleing and the whole green movement is helping people scrap machines they had in the attic now that you don't have to spend money to recycle a computer. Even collectors are liquidating and recycling their machines because of having to move or losing their houses and/or storage area. And this assumes most of the hoarded machines will not be functional any longer from corrosion and batter leakage or just parts that wore out (many people even here do not want to try and fix anything or pay to get things fixed).
Hardly any. There is no real collectors market for IBM PS/2 and IBM PS/ValuePoint machines. For some Apple and other systems there is more of a demand. Also: a lot recent collecting is based on nostalgia: guys in their 30s/40s/50s who long for their first encounters with computers. In a few decades most of those people will have moved on from it I believe and demand will drop drastically as will knowledge on how to operate the operating systems and hardware.How many machines do you have that people could not give away 10 years ago but now people spend good money for? At one point there was a huge glut of IIgs systems that you could not give away (most were recycled) and now people are paying decent money for a stock unit (let alone prices for the rarities has gone up quite a bit). Most of my Amiga collection I got about 8-10 years ago and now it would cost way too much to replace it. Newer systems are going from users directly to the recycling center, nobody is holding onto them like they used to do for the old $2000+ machines 20 years ago.
Some stuff is regional, SUN was never that popular around here for example, people must be tripping over then in CA.
Actually I think quite a few people like the PS/2 Model 95 tower, its the lower end PS/2 systems people generaly don't bother collecting.
Some stuff is regional, SUN was never that popular around here for example, people must be tripping over then in CA.