Hi from a civilian

Hi guys/gals. I'm actually not a scrapper, so if you would prefer that I not join your forum, please just let me know, and I will respect that. I wanted to join your board because I've recently started collecting "vintage" computers, and I think maybe we could help each other out. For example, I was looking through some of your eBay listings, and I think in some cases, if you presented, packaged, and/or priced some of your items differently, you would get more sales from the collecting community. For example, one of your members had a lot of 8088 motherboards. He was selling them in a large lot, and his photos showed them stacked on top of each other. Those old boards are valuable to a lot of collectors. Many of them were probably pulled from old gaming systems, and gamers are a huge part of the "vintage" collecting community. So a better strategy might be to keep the original equipment intact (unless it's a total mess) and sell each Commodore or whatever individually for parts. Folks are starting to need more and more replacement parts, especially for those old gaming systems. Many of these collectors actually play on those machines, and that equipment wasn't designed to last 30 years. On the other hand, if what you received the boards already pulled from the systems, then you might want to consider selling them individually or in much smaller lots. And never stack them on top of each other. That circuitry is delicate, and these collectors and gaming enthusiasts are looking for stuff that's in good shape. We will pay more for these items than someone who only wants scrap.

Based on what I've been reading in the vintage computer forums and the kinds of prices I've been seeing on eBay, craigslist, etc., there are a lot of people out there that want old computers. And I don't mean just really old ones, although those are usually the most valuable, but even 486's and early Pentiums. (And of course, whatever you do, never throw away anything with the word "Apple" on it. I'm pretty sure someone would like to buy it from you.) People are looking all over for things like sounds cards, memory, hard drives, floppy drives, you name it. They want to keep their equipment authentic, so they need parts. They also want all kinds of intact systems, including CRT monitors. Now, I'm not saying there are enough collectors to take everything off yours hands, and this group is definitely not interested in anything too recent, but there are a good number of them, and they spend a lot of time looking for things to buy.

All right, this is way too long an intro, but this might be my only chance to explain to you where I'm coming from. As I see it, the e-cyclers and the collectors could really benefit from talking to each other. After all, you have the supply, and we have at least some of the demand. I know there are a few scrappers on the vintage boards. I don't know if you have any collectors here already. So if you don't, I'm volunteering. I'm not an expert, but I might be able to help with identifying things or figuring out how to present them to the collecting community. And I have access to experts, guys who have been doing this for decades, so if something looks as if it might be valuable but I don't know what it is, I can ask someone who probably will know.



OK, that's enough from me. I'll go away now and check in over the next couple of days to see how you feel about what I've said. This is a nice forum you have, and I definitely don't want to intrude. Take care, hope to talk to you again soon.