Why would a museum want 30 copies of the same model SE for example? Who is going to caugh up the $10K to buy it and store it?
I would rather snag a collection with multiple machines but not all the same model then a hoard of many multiples of the same model. I just don't see the economics of buying that hoard. For example lets say you had 100 stock SE/30's and they all worked. You could probably average $50 each by selling 8 a month (2 per week) for about a year hauling in $5000. That average is because the first few will sell for more but sooner or later everyone who wants a SE/30 will have one and others will put it off since there are allwasy at least 2 for sale any given week). This means you have to clean and prep for shipping 2 units a week for a year and all those packing materials come out of your cashflow. You also would need to stack those machines somewhere dry and cool for that time period. Now if many of those compacts are plain SE's expect to get quite a bit less, a few might be CC's so you get a bunch more, and some might have CPU or network upgrades you can sell seperate. Then you have broken machines needing work or ones that look like hell so wont sell and they need recycled. What is your time worth?
The present owner probably has an idea how hard it would be to sell that stuff individually and how much effort it would take which is why he is throwing the $10K price out there to see if anyone is interested before it gets recycled. Anyone here who has/had a nice collection without too many duplicates and had to ditch it in a hurry knows how hard that is and how you probably don't get what you think it is worth and many systems are given away free just to get them out of the way. My collection took the better part of 10 years to collect, and would probably take as long to get rid off if I ever got bored of it and wanted my money back. Hopefully selling the rare and prized material would counter what it costs to dispose of the rest (if there is still a market for old useless computers at that point).
I would rather snag a collection with multiple machines but not all the same model then a hoard of many multiples of the same model. I just don't see the economics of buying that hoard. For example lets say you had 100 stock SE/30's and they all worked. You could probably average $50 each by selling 8 a month (2 per week) for about a year hauling in $5000. That average is because the first few will sell for more but sooner or later everyone who wants a SE/30 will have one and others will put it off since there are allwasy at least 2 for sale any given week). This means you have to clean and prep for shipping 2 units a week for a year and all those packing materials come out of your cashflow. You also would need to stack those machines somewhere dry and cool for that time period. Now if many of those compacts are plain SE's expect to get quite a bit less, a few might be CC's so you get a bunch more, and some might have CPU or network upgrades you can sell seperate. Then you have broken machines needing work or ones that look like hell so wont sell and they need recycled. What is your time worth?
The present owner probably has an idea how hard it would be to sell that stuff individually and how much effort it would take which is why he is throwing the $10K price out there to see if anyone is interested before it gets recycled. Anyone here who has/had a nice collection without too many duplicates and had to ditch it in a hurry knows how hard that is and how you probably don't get what you think it is worth and many systems are given away free just to get them out of the way. My collection took the better part of 10 years to collect, and would probably take as long to get rid off if I ever got bored of it and wanted my money back. Hopefully selling the rare and prized material would counter what it costs to dispose of the rest (if there is still a market for old useless computers at that point).