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The price of the chip depends primarily on chip rarity, collectibility
and condition.
Chip rarity is based on how many chips of the same manufacturer
with the same part number and in the same package are available
on the market to collectors. Chip rarity is usually related to chip
age - older chips are more rare, but there are exceptions to this.
Other factors affecting the rarity:
- Package - plastic packages are common, ceramic packages are
more rare, purple/grey side-brazed ceramic DIP packages are even
more rare, and white ceramic packages are the rarest. There are
exceptions to this - for example, purple ceramic Intel C8087 is
more common then Intel D8087. Another example - C8008 in plastic
package is much more rare than C8008 in ceramic package.
- Variations in chip markings - old / newer company logo, font
size, location of the markings, unusual markings or family logo,
and so on.
- Variations in chip package - tin or gold pins, type of the lid,
square or rounded lid, additional marks on the package (for example,
"5" on white ceramic C4004), etc.
- Sample chips - engineering, customer and other samples are valued
much more than production parts. The samples are usually valued
a few times higher than production chips, and in some cases 10-20
times higher. Please see "Wanted: Microprocessor, co-processor
and microcontroller samples" section above for information on
how to identify engineering, qualification, mechanical and other
samples. Please note that modern (Pentium D, Core 2 Duo, Phenom
and others) engineering samples have much higher market value
than their collectible value - if you have one of these processors
you'd be better selling them to people who actually use them than
to CPU collectors.
Collectibility - how desirable this chip to CPU / chip collectors,
or, basically, how big is the chip collector market for this specific
chip. The biggest market is for microprocessors. The market is slightly
smaller for Floating Point Units (FPU), and even smaller for bit-slice
processors, microcontrollers, and first RAM / ROM and support chips.
There is almost no market of old support chips, and very small market
for modern processors - they are not considered collectible yet.
From manufacturers collectors usually favor Intel.
Condition - New / used, quality of chip markings, the presence
of scratches / chips on chip surface, condition of pins, working
status, etc. New chips in working and visually like new condition
are most desirable to CPU collectors. Used socketed chips have lower
price then new chips, and used soldered chips have much lower price
(about 50% price of the new chips or lower). Damaged chip markings
and scratches, marks, and especially surface chips may lower the
price even further. Non-working chips are usually worth much less
than working chips. For boxed processors or FPUs the price is also
determined by whether the box is in original shrink wrap or not,
and the condition of the box. Unopened still in shrink wrap box
in like-new condition is worth more than opened box, and much more
than badly damaged box (even if it was not opened).
Supply and demand for different chip types always fluctuate, which
results in constantly changing chip prices. For example, in the
recent few years we've seen many non-common processors and floating
point units sold by collectors and sellers from Asia, where those
chips are recycled, which reduced the price of many 8086 - Pentium
class processors. At the same time due to limited supply the prices
of some 4004 and 4040 processors went up. Because of the constantly
changing supply and demand for chips and huge number of different
chips variations, publishing up-to-date chip prices is not physically
possible. You can try to contact
us the get a rough price estimate for microprocessors, Floating-Point
Units, microcontrollers, bit-slice processors, and very early RAM,
ROM and support chips. Be prepared to provide exact part numbers
and condition of the chips. We will only provide collectible value
of the chips.
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