TanruNomad
Veteran Member
There's one on eBay. (click here) How rare are these guys?
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PolyMorphic System 8813 up for sale
- Thread starter TanruNomad
- Start date
smp
Veteran Member
Oh, it's *him* ...
It certainly figures that fellow would be the one to obtain a Polymorphic system.
He also has a very nice looking original Poly 88 that he trots out for $3K to $4K from time to time, too.
Sigh!
smp
It certainly figures that fellow would be the one to obtain a Polymorphic system.
He also has a very nice looking original Poly 88 that he trots out for $3K to $4K from time to time, too.
Sigh!
smp
lol. I can think of a few usernames I'd rather not see more than his. He's a member here if he wants to announce anything more about it though. I'm honestly not sure of the rarity of the system myself although not that many are coming up in recent searches. Price some other gear for sale and you might get a ballpark of a non-ebay rate though. No blame to him/them, they're making money and I guess it's working out well. I think sometimes they're stuff can be a little on the 150% or 200% price side but it's ebay. No real hurry to sell a collection I think so it's mostly the desperation game.
Corey986
Administrator
I think this had been covered about him before, but...
I think his target buyer is overseas from the US. Many eBay sellers won't ship/sell outside the US, so he does actually sell stuff. I have found that if your in the US and he has something you really need, he will deal for a reasonable market price. I needed an early IMSAI card at one point and he had it. I didn't pay more than I should have when I made him an offer.
Cheers,
Corey
I think his target buyer is overseas from the US. Many eBay sellers won't ship/sell outside the US, so he does actually sell stuff. I have found that if your in the US and he has something you really need, he will deal for a reasonable market price. I needed an early IMSAI card at one point and he had it. I didn't pay more than I should have when I made him an offer.
Cheers,
Corey
snuci
Veteran Member
I see from your site that you already have one. I also have one as complete as the eBay auction and then some. Mine has three disk drives, the original boxes, the monitor, the keyboard, manuals and a bunch of disks. I even have the brochures. The only thing I haven't done is fired it up. It was a recent purchase.
Outside of that one that I picked up on Craigslist, I've never seen one for sale other than the eBay auction you mentioned. It's been up for sale a few times, without any takers at that price.
TanruNomad
Veteran Member
Mine only came with the computer and keyboard. What serial number is yours? What are the specs of the monitor?
snuci
Veteran Member
It's a Hitachi monitor and if I recall, there was no special branding and was the same model used in the advertisements. I think it looks like this but I'll confirm and find the serial number when I get home. This picture was in the Craigslist ad but I'm not sure if it was a stock picture or the actual unit. It looks identical and I even have the key. The keyboard is the same and came with a brown "pleather" cover.
snuci
Veteran Member
Here's a couple of pics.
The monitor is Hitachi just like the picture and it came in the original Hitachi box with a Polymorphic Systems label on it. The monitor is branded Hitachi on the front bezel. Here's a pic of the back plate with model number:
My serial number is 3170 :
Oddly enough, my box is different from that auction. I wouldn't think it would change much. Mine is a little deeper and doesn't have "Fragile: Handle with Care" on it. It might be because it's got 8-10 inches of solid foam block on the top and bottom of the unit as well as beefed up padding on the sides. It's in a cocoon
I should take pics of it one day. Haven't had a chance yet. I usually tackle the acquisitions that need some repairs first. This one is 99% working except one of the three drives has intermittent disk reading issues so it probably just needs a cleaning.
Hope this helps.
The monitor is Hitachi just like the picture and it came in the original Hitachi box with a Polymorphic Systems label on it. The monitor is branded Hitachi on the front bezel. Here's a pic of the back plate with model number:
My serial number is 3170 :
Oddly enough, my box is different from that auction. I wouldn't think it would change much. Mine is a little deeper and doesn't have "Fragile: Handle with Care" on it. It might be because it's got 8-10 inches of solid foam block on the top and bottom of the unit as well as beefed up padding on the sides. It's in a cocoon
I should take pics of it one day. Haven't had a chance yet. I usually tackle the acquisitions that need some repairs first. This one is 99% working except one of the three drives has intermittent disk reading issues so it probably just needs a cleaning.
Hope this helps.
TanruNomad
Veteran Member
Awesome, very nice to see the pictures. The PolyMorphic that's on eBay is serial #6666 which is the largest number I've seen from the huge sample of 4 that I know of. 
That's a great, complete system you have there!
That's a great, complete system you have there!
snuci
Veteran Member
You do have a unique keyboard with the numeric keypad. All of the keyboards I've seen on the Poly 8813 have been similar to mine as pictured above. The advertisements showed a dark/black keyboard but Poly's in the wild seem to all be metallic silver like the front face plate (and not white/cream colored as they look like in pictures).
This was a business model to the Poly 88, as I understand it. Even the documentation I have is for the Poly 88 as you can see in this Photobucket site: http://s385.photobucket.com/user/GizmoDaddy/library/Polymorphic Systems 8813?sort=6&page=1 I'll have to double check because I thought my manual was in an orange binder like the small Poly 88.
This was a business model to the Poly 88, as I understand it. Even the documentation I have is for the Poly 88 as you can see in this Photobucket site: http://s385.photobucket.com/user/GizmoDaddy/library/Polymorphic Systems 8813?sort=6&page=1 I'll have to double check because I thought my manual was in an orange binder like the small Poly 88.