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My Vintage collection FREE for pickup in N. Calif.

S

strollin

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2008
Messages
344
Location
N. California, USA
I have been trying to sell my small collection. I have sold a number of items but still have the following:

IBM 5160 XT
IBM 5150 PC (earlier model with black power supply, 16-64K MB)
IBM 5150 PC (later model with silver PS, 64-256K MB)
IBM 5140 Convertible with attached printer and carry case
IBM 8573 P70 Portable
IBM 8573 P70 Portable
Compaq Portable I with padded carry case
Tandy TRS80 Model 100 (in original box)
Toshiba T3100 laptop (display is readable but has vertical stripes)

At one time all of these computers were working. I packed them up and stored them. Now as I am trying to sell them I pull them out of storage to fire them up and take pictures and such for potential buyers and almost every one of them has some kind of issue which causes me to put hours into troubleshooting them to figure out what the issue is. The last straw was today. A forum member had made an offer for my oldest 5150 PC and so I pulled it out and fired it up and it was working fine. I had the cover off to take pictures of the inside. I then re-installed the cover and now get a system board memory error at boot time. I spent a short time trying to determine which chip went bad but I decided that I don't want to invest any additional time into these vintage computers in order to sell them. I used to enjoy tinkering with them but I just don't anymore so I want them gone.

So here's the deal. Whomever shows up at my door with a truck to haul them away gets everything I have with the condition that you have to take it all. In addition to the computers listed above, I have boxes of cards, floppy disks, spare drives, 50 or so keyboards and other "stuff".

I'm not going to take any pictures, not going to attempt to power them up and I'm certainly not going to pack them for shipping. There is some good stuff and like I said, they were all working before being stored. As far as I know, half of them are still working. I'll leave the offer open for 2 weeks and, if no one comes to pick the stuff up, I will haul it to the recyclers. I hope someone comes and gets them because I'd rather not take them to the recyclers. Hopefully there's someone nearby that would love to tinker with these old computers and bring them back to life.

I live in the San Francisco Bay area of Northern California, about 30 miles south of San Jose.
 
I wonder if someone would be willing to post them on the VCGM or such and split the profits or just redistribute them. Very nice systems all around although I'm sure in Cali they'll find a nice home.
 
grr UK!! ;-) Hell I'd start a fund or something to have UPS or whomever pick it up and ship it to save it from that. Unfortunately it always seems like things like this are too far away from everyone. Never quite understand how it can happen to good collections.
 
If you have to have a local pickup and it is an all or nothing proposition that tends to weed out many collectors and attract recyclers.
 
I would be willing to help pay temporary storage to save them. If anyone is interested please PM me. I am sure we can arrange for a moving company to pick them up and store them.

Thanks,

Jimmy
 
Depending on if anyone else here has claimed, I'm not too far away (around an hour and a half) I could take anything that would fit in our Nissan, however that comes down to the biggest problem is monitors.
 
Unknown_K said:
If you have to have a local pickup and it is an all or nothing proposition that tends to weed out many collectors and attract recyclers.
Click to expand...

Problem is most of us already have those machines and then some so to pickup a whole lot just for one or two so so machines (i.e. a 5150 rev "a" is rare but not that rare - now if he had a full working Cray 2 in his lot I'd be flying up there tonight...) becomes very hard. Add to the fact that most of us have more projects pending then completed and I don't think its unreasonable that not too many people are taking him up on his offer to pickup possibly nonworking/in need of repair machines. It is sad, and I hate to see it but I understand it.

Frankly, if/when I get rid of my collection it will be sold piece meal for the price of the best essay saying why the buyer wants that machine and cost of shipping. That will keep the vultures away and hopefully get the machines to a good home....
 
If this was 6 years ago they would have already been picked up by a collector. That said, put up a simple add in the SF Craigslist.com site and find a buyer for the entire lot for say $100, to keep the recyclers away. Set a price above the scrap price to ensure that the person who buys them values them more than their scrap value. Just for the "fun of it" I took my old stove and scrap metal I had lying around the house to a scrap place to see what kind of money I could get. It ain't much. $100 should be more than enough to sell the good items, and then sell the rest to a scrapper with a second ad, why force someone to take everything? Give an incentive for two to take everything.
 
I shot an offer like probably a lot of folks as well for the Tandy for shipping and time, but I understand how some folks are having physical issues which is preventing the packing, etc of the systems. If I was local though I'd pick them up even if I had them just for spares, fixer uppers, or redistribution. Obviously it'd be nice not to have recyclers scrap or sell them for max cash.
 
I'm not nearby, but am hoping somebody can save this collection. I'd be happy to pitch in a small fee for storage in the interim while owners are found to help keep these machines from going to the scrapyard.

If at any point anybody would be interested in shipping, I'd be pretty interested in that Compaq Portable.

Cheers,
Chris Hafner
 
strollin said:
IBM 5160 XT
IBM 5150 PC (earlier model with black power supply, 16-64K MB)
IBM 5150 PC (later model with silver PS, 64-256K MB)
IBM 5140 Convertible with attached printer and carry case
Click to expand...

Maybe I can arrange a group buy to Brazil, I'm broke, but I know some folks that would love to buy them. But I would need people with a lot of time and patience to pack this to Brazil...
 
strollin, I'm sorry to see that you're getting so fed up that you can't even stand to deal with these PCs any longer. Ceratinly a few of them, even non-working, will more than be worth the time to ebay and sell, but then again, ymmv :)

If anyone gets these and there's an 83-key or 84-key IBM keyboard in the lot, please PM me so we can work something out. Good luck - I hope that these find a good home!
 
If someone else picks these up I'd be vaguely interested in some spare 5 1/4 floppy drive mechanisms... (40 track.)

I'd fire off a PM offering to take the whole lot but I have to be frank: if saddled with all that I'd probably save one box of spare parts and the Model 100, try getting a 5150 and/or the Compaq Portable to work, and then try to pawn the rest of it off to someone else. (And packing to ship isn't my idea of a good time either, so if it's all or nothing, gotta pass.)
 
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