I got a free Classic II a while back (the last compact I got). When I snagged it it was dirty as hell and would not work (checkerboard screen or something like that). In stripped it (which I do for pretty mcuh everything I get these days), washed the board with hot tap water and some liquid dishwashing soap, scrubbed the case, and dried it. When I put it back together I upped the RAM to 10MB (max) and it actually works fine now.

You would be shocked to learn how many people snag old machines on freecycle/craigslist (free section) just to get it home and find out it is not what they expected and trash it. There are tons of people who wait online for a computer post and snag it without having a clue what the heck it is, which sucks for people like me who have do not check those sites every minute of every day.