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Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

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Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#221

Post by Fatnino »

BobAliceInATree wrote: post #86

The sad reality is that you can spend a lifetime collecting something, the but likelihood that any of your potential heirs is also interested in it, is pretty close to zero. That's true of multi-million dollar vintage computers, or your childhood stamp collection that's mostly worthless. Paul's mistake was not properly establishing a foundation & endowment to maintain this musuem, which almost certainly leaks lots of…

There was a private tank collection in Portola Valley. There was a way to arrange tours but it didn't have anything like regular hours. It was just a guy with lots of money spending it on buying and restoring tanks. Most of them could run under their own power. Stuff like a German Tiger parked facing an American Sherman and a Russian T34. 2 huge garage fulls of these things. And visitors were allowed to climb onto and into all the tanks. It's how I learned that British tanks are righthand drive.

Anyway, guy died, his heirs preferred money to tanks, and they all got sold off. At best they are on display somewhere on the east coast behind velvet rope where no one will touch or drive them again.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#222

Post by kragen »

Suzuran wrote: post #206
tomcam wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow. What happened?

Long story short, my Medicare records got screwed up. Some database entry isn't in the correct state that allows their processes to proceed. None of the humans I can get in contact with has the authority (or knows anyone with the authority) to manually correct the record, because that would be outside of their processes. Since the record isn't in a valid state, my access to medications I need to stay alive is being c…

can you buy it from overseas mail order pharmacies, by driving to mexico, on darknet markets, or on alibaba?

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#223

Post by kragen »

Suzuran wrote: post #200
kragen wrote: post #91

this is pretty unfortunate. iirc they had the only digital pdp-10 in the world that's currently in working order — the line of computers on which emacs, microsoft basic, simtel-20, and compuserve all originated. most of the arpanet was pdp-10s at one time. nasa's gsfc spacelink ftp site, where you could download space photos, was the only one i ever encountered running hopefully that machine will find a good home in…

Very far from the only working one. I have a working one, for now, but we don't know how much longer I will be here because I am currently dying from a government paperwork error that nobody in government has the authority to fix.

thank you for the correction

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#224

Post by devilbunny »

intrasight wrote: post #155
devilbunny wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have bought a lot of stuff at estate auctions. Yeah, a generic estate sale will not generate a lot of money, but if you have serious art (i.e., it would sell to more than a local audience), it can bring in quite a bit. I saw an Alan Bean (the astronaut) painting at one; ended up going for over $30k. And the estate gets all of that; the auction house charges a premium (in this case, 25%) paid by the buyer, but the o…

The liquidation value of the average middle-class house is $10k - according to my divorce attorney.

The ones I’m talking about are definitely not middle class.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#225

Post by throwway120385 »

Suzuran wrote: post #206
tomcam wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow. What happened?

Long story short, my Medicare records got screwed up. Some database entry isn't in the correct state that allows their processes to proceed. None of the humans I can get in contact with has the authority (or knows anyone with the authority) to manually correct the record, because that would be outside of their processes. Since the record isn't in a valid state, my access to medications I need to stay alive is being c…

Have you contacted your US senator or US representative? They can often clear up these kinds of issues by locating the single person in government that you actually need to talk to.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#226

Post by bombcar »

Kaijo wrote: post #188
bruce511 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When collecting there's a selling price and a buying price. The difference can be -substantial-. For example, stamps have a catalog. Literally a giant book, with all the stamps and variations, and the current value. (Ahem, buying value). Think if it as a giant "vendor neutral" price guide. [1] Now obviously when you come to sell you mostly sell to a dealer. So you expect him to take some margin. He has to make a livi…

I'm a lifelong collector of a variety of (very) niche things, and have at times sold or tried to sell items from my collections, or whole collections at once. You're right about everything, I would only add that each category of thing is its own world in terms of liquidity and how certain you can be of obtaining a guide price. It also pays off to learn about the collector cultures and communities surrounding each typ…

Sometimes the best thing you can do with a collection is bequeath it to someone in the hobby who's much younger.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#227

Post by bombcar »

fl7305 wrote: post #187
intrasight wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The liquidation value of the average middle-class house is $10k - according to my divorce attorney.

$10k sounds high to me if we're talking about home electronics, furniture, etc? Do people have a lot of expensive jewelry that's included, or does it include vehicles?

If we're talking the contents, you can get to $10k pretty easily, think appliances (a hundred or so each), laptops, stereo, etc.

If you held a garage sale today and let people go throughout your entire house, you could probably net $10k.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#228

Post by Suzuran »

kragen wrote: post #222
Suzuran wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long story short, my Medicare records got screwed up. Some database entry isn't in the correct state that allows their processes to proceed. None of the humans I can get in contact with has the authority (or knows anyone with the authority) to manually correct the record, because that would be outside of their processes. Since the record isn't in a valid state, my access to medications I need to stay alive is being c…

can you buy it from overseas mail order pharmacies, by driving to mexico, on darknet markets, or on alibaba?

Currently looking into overseas mail-order. I'm too far from Mexico or Canada to drive there; I haven't considered darknet/alibaba because if I get sold a fake, I won't be able to tell without lab tests, and I can't afford the lab tests. There's also some concern that by the time I have negative lab results that would indicate a fake it may be too late to save the kidney anyway.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#229

Post by Suzuran »

throwway120385 wrote: post #225
Suzuran wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long story short, my Medicare records got screwed up. Some database entry isn't in the correct state that allows their processes to proceed. None of the humans I can get in contact with has the authority (or knows anyone with the authority) to manually correct the record, because that would be outside of their processes. Since the record isn't in a valid state, my access to medications I need to stay alive is being c…

Have you contacted your US senator or US representative? They can often clear up these kinds of issues by locating the single person in government that you actually need to talk to.

The Medicare people advised this as well. I have attempted to contact my Congressional representative, but have not received an answer yet.

Re: Living Computers Museum to permanently close, auction vintage items

#230

Post by kragen »

Suzuran wrote: post #228
kragen wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you buy it from overseas mail order pharmacies, by driving to mexico, on darknet markets, or on alibaba?

Currently looking into overseas mail-order. I'm too far from Mexico or Canada to drive there; I haven't considered darknet/alibaba because if I get sold a fake, I won't be able to tell without lab tests, and I can't afford the lab tests. There's also some concern that by the time I have negative lab results that would indicate a fake it may be too late to save the kidney anyway.

best of luck
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