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Ask HN: Should I sell my vintage computer collection?

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21–30 of 83 posts

Re: Ask HN: Should I sell my vintage computer collection?

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes if there was a really great museum I trusted this might be something I'd consider. Here in Australia there's not much in the way of technology museums. There's Powerhouse, but I don't know if they would care much about such a collection.

Where in Australia are you? (Roughly)

Melbourne.

Re: Ask HN: Should I sell my vintage computer collection?

#23
As with all material goods, keep what you actually use and care about. If something is just sitting in a box unused, then get rid of it. If it's just taking up space in your house collecting dust, why do you have it? Get it in the hands of someone who will make use of it, care for it, and for whom it will bring joy.

Re: Ask HN: Should I sell my vintage computer collection?

#25

A significant problem I noticed after moving my collection out of storage after about three years is that there is quite a bit of damage to the systems - leaking batteries, failed capacitors etc. Selling will only make sense if the systems are working, so you should expect having to invest quite a lot of time and some money to repair the damaged machines (or sell them for parts, but then the prices will probably be s…

Yeah I'm concerned about the caps. Most of my machines are too old to have batteries.

Some of the Amigas definitely have small lithium batteries that keep the NVRAM and real-time clock alive. These tend to leak rather often and the corrosive contents eat away PCB traces. So better double-check, I lost a Mac IIcx due to a leaking battery; luckily my NeXTs and the other Macs are fine (but need some recapping).

Re: Ask HN: Should I sell my vintage computer collection?

#27

Or find a museum with nice people who know what they are doing and are looking for this. Gift or sell to them or borrow it to them (I don’t know the english word) like collectors do with paintings to museums. I have 1000s of vintage computers myself and different places are showing and keeping them. Right temperature etc and fixing them when broken and having many people who can see and try (some of) them. I kept 20…

There was this museum in the city of Mariupol that went destroyed.

https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/retro-game-museum-in-uk...

It would be great if collectors like you teamed up to recreate a new and even more exhaustive one.

Re: Ask HN: Should I sell my vintage computer collection?

#28
Been there done that. I had a huge collection of Acorn and Sun computers. The burden of looking after and storing them was less than the joy that I had from using them. Eventually I sold them all and my life was actually better.

There will be regrets about selling some things. But it’s possibly better to have those regrets to focus you on what you really wanted.

Re: Ask HN: Should I sell my vintage computer collection?

#30
Last year I was contacted by a woman whose late husband had amassed a collection similar to yours.

She had decided to donate the machines to those who would find a use for them, that being old co-workers and student organizations at nearby universities, the latter including me. Who would keep them running and in use instead of just collecting dust.

We actually have a guy who still uses an Amiga at his current job spitting out code and whatnot which is quite cool. :-)

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