Local shop cleanout

[1pc@atime]

First off I should say that my electronics experience is more audio related then computer related.

About 6 years ago I did a cleanout/buyout of a local repair shop.

Knowing he did some vintage audio work and repairs, plus the fact that he had a rather extensive parts supply I actively went about buying up the contents of his shop after he passed. About 95% of what he had were components I gladly added to my own parts supply.

Among the parts was a rather extensive assortment of IC chips, not massive quantities but still a lot. About 1/4 of them I recognize from various amps, receivers, and other audio related repairs but there's also some older Intel chips as well.

After a local guy started bugging me to look for various p/n chips, all older intel, many of which I have, i did some searching as to what they've been selling for. Many came up blank, but a few showed that they had done well on eBay over the past year.

One that I did find is Intel C4003, of which I have several. I see a few listed now on eBay for $350 to $750. A few sold for $150 to $300 over the past year.

My question is two fold, first, is there a list online somewhere that can identify various chip numbers by function and application?

Second, is there any such thing as a list of chips that likely are of interest to collectors vs a guy like me who is only interested in those that apply to audio?
(In other words, a computer CPU or memory chip is not something I'll ever use and with an assortment this big, chances are there's a good many that I'll likely never use or need).

Most are in 60 drawer cabinets, with one to four p/n per drawer. They are in numerical order but not by brand or application. The lowest number is 3 the highest somewhere i the 99xx range with each cabinet having roughly 220 various p/n chips sorted by base number. (For example, an Intel C4003 would be i a drawer marked 4001- 4003, and any chips using those base numbers are i that divided drawer. There are black chips marked 4003 and white ceramic C4003 chips in that drawer as well as CD4001, and so on.

It would take pages to inventory and list them all, there's 7 60 drawer boxes and a tub of chips in separate boxes, more Intel mostly.

[rjluna2]

Cool stash find

[Marcin]

Nice finds ! Here is great book wrote by George Phillips and where you can find some estimate values of some Intel chips :
https://www.cpushack.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/VintageIntelMicrochipsRev4.pdf
but keep it in mind book was wrote some years ago and INMHO many of prices has rised.

You can use our forum to ask for value for each chip. Prepare a list and good resolution photos and I'm sure you get some opinions from us.

Also we have sale/trade section where you can find buyer without hassle with eBay or other places.

[Guest]

Thanks for the link to the book, that's what I needed to find.

I'm surprised with the values listed that the few I've seen on eBay have not sold. Or at least didn't sell on eBay. I see several like the C4003 chips shown on page 713 on eBay now, a few have been there for a long time. A few sold for about what the book puts them at or more over the past year.

What got me looking further into these is that I had a guy from Japan who in an unrelated conversation about some audio components he had asked about 'old white chips', when I told him I had some made a substantial offer on one of the white chips, a C4004, much like the one pictured at the top of page 722 for four times the top price listed there. He had no interest in any of the other chips, he never even asked to see them. The one I had was dated 1976 from the Philippines. It was the only white/gold C4004 that I've found so far.
I sold that one basically because it covered a good bit of the cost of moving all of what I had bought.
Maybe I sold it too cheap, maybe not, but it covered a good bit of the cost of moving it all in a way.


I noticed the book mentions M type chips, 10 lead metal can style on pg 118
It shows one in a plastic holder. (pg 127)
How were those originally shipped?
I was finding those and similar 10 pin metal can style chips with the plastic cards attached packed loose in plastic bags in boxes of 500. Not all the p/n discussed here, but I found it odd they would ship them loose in a bag like that?
The boxes had shipping dates on them from the very early 70's from addresses in CA and WA. I don't recall them being from Intel, but I can't say I paid much attention to them, they're still packed away in flip top tubs mainly because they're not something I'd ever use here.
A good many of those were shipped back in the 70's directly to from RCA, TI, and Motorola to the address where I found them.

Was it normal practice to ship parts like that in bags, loose?

The regular IC chips were mostly all in small drawer cabinets, but there were a good many that were on hard foam sheets in boxes too, again, not from Intel, mostly from Motorola, RCA, and Texas Instruments, but they were on hard foam sheets in lots of 144, packed in silver plastic bags laid in boxes, others were in singles in small plastic boxes. The 'hard' foam feels like the stuff you get meat in at the store but in black.

[1pc@atime]

Sorry, forgot to log in, that last post is mine.

[Marcin]

Yup C4004 is holy grail for everyone sitting in this hobby so I'm not surprised you was asked for it and got good offer Prices has flew away for them especially if you had in good visual contion. Clean, healthy, straight pins and clear print is appreciated.

As for shipping chips in bags I believe none were treated like that.

[1pc@atime]

The C4004 and all the older chips were in clear plastic jewel cases or in long tube/sleeves. but most all other components were in bulk bags, boxes, or in drawer bins in the shop there. Bulk boxes are roughly the size of a case of beer and lined with a bag full of chips, transistors, or capacitors. The resistors were mostly in tape rolls or in small assortment boxes.
The drawer cabinets ranged from small, clear plastic 60 drawer cabinets, the kind you buy at the hardware store for nuts and bolts, some larger Akron Mills 3x4x12" 12 drawer cabinets similar in size to an old library card file drawer, and in larger steel Proto and Lista 26" wide, 18" deep, 60" tall steel parts cabinets with dividers separating various part numbers in rows.
Then on the shelves there were mostly cardboard boxes with bulk boxed components. One box of 255JE labeled chips or op amps from Motorola, (shiny black with gold legs, is roughly 12x18x9 inches, has a Motorola logo on three sides and was addressed from Mesa, AZ to Phila, PA in 1/1988 via UPS. The box is lined with a clear bag, and filled to the top with chips. There are similar boxes with other p/n's and boxes from Texas Instruments packaged the same way. Large boxes of bulk ic chips or op amps loose in huge bags. They're also not light, some of those boxes are in the 30-40lb range.
None of the white or purple ceramic chips are packaged like that.

The largest quantity of anything were the two cardboard barrels full of loose TIP31 and TIP32 TO-220 Transistors, both from Motorola plus another 75 or so boxes of loose bagged bulk transistors of all types and tray assortments of various other components, there are over 300 flat plastic trays of small transistors, op amps, and other parts assortments in case lots from various makers.

[bubbaj]

I wasn't going to sign up here but I've been reading here for a while now.

As a long time tinkerer on vintage equipment, and a retired truck driver I spent years hauling small electronics parts from manufacturers to packaging facilities.
I started driving in the late 70's for a company that regularly would transport ic chips, and other solid state components in bulk from the source to a plant that counted, sorted, and retail packages those parts.

Never once were those parts given any special treatment as to static or even dirt or other issues. They were shipped in open top bins and/or cardboard barrels with massive amounts of overage and loss along the way. (The dumpster at the one plant regularly would have components that were dumped as 'extra' or overage.) In many ways its what got me interested in repairs.

Over the years not many who dealt with repairs on various hifi gear, tv's, and other components generally stored items loose in drawers. often bedded in foam sometimes but they were not shipped that way from the plant. The main concern we had was in bending the legs on ic chips but when shipped in bulk, they were often sold in 100 lots or more in bags. Go to any local Hamfest or swap meet and you'll find hoards of vintage parts for sale.
In recent years its been a great source for hard to find repair parts. Finding bags of chips there is common. I bought a 5lb bag of Texas Instruments 555 op amps about two weeks ago for $3 from a regular seller at those events who specializes in cleanouts of old shops and hoards of parts much like my own.

[1pc@atime]

I kind of figured that was the case at some point, most of these bulk boxes and bags of components all have OEM logos or p/n's printed or stamped on the bags. I can't imagine them supplying a large manufacturer with parts individually wrapped in anti static bags and conductive foam, at least not for the simpler IC chips.

The bags of transistors shown above have small white RCA logo cards inside with the p/n and specs on it. The bags are all still sealed in lots of 250. in a box of 5,000 pieces total, (20 bags per box).
Lots of items are packaged in the same way Resistors are packaged in smaller bags, in lots of 500 per value and wattage in 18x12x10 boxes of full assortments. The drawer cabinets were filled with a 'few' of each value, maybe 200 or so of each value of everything. The main cabinets were in a room adjacent to the main lab. Larger quantities were stored on shelves down the hall in a store room. A good many of the bulk boxes were unopened. The vast majority of everything is pre-1983 but there is some stuff from as late as the mid 90's or so.

[bubbaj]

If each and every last component made had to be individually wrapped or packaged in antistatic envelopes we would never have been able to afford the products they built them with.

In the years I spent driving a truck, the only items that received any serious care in handling were aviation parts, cadavers, and medical supplies. All else was just freight and handled as such.

About 90% of the drivers out there also don't have a clue as to what most items really are or what they're used for.
The only thing that did bother me was when they would have us pickup mixed loads, such as half a truck full of candy bars or snacks and half a load of glue, pesticides, or fertilizer. Not that the food wasn't wrapped and we didn't haul that stuff far but it happened.

I gave a quick count, and I've got over 50 different IC p/n's that I had gotten back in the day, either from the dumpster or from spillage in the truck. (I can't count how many times I pulled ic chips out of my boot soles that I picked up around the docks there over the years).

Nothing that's particularly valuable I suppose but I've sold a good many of them on eBay and not once had a complaint.


I don't have any of the white ceramic chips, they were before my time there I suppose and I don't think we ever had anything from Intel on the truck.

What makes a chip like this one worth so much?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/236473705010

I've watched a few lately sell for a good bit more as well over the summer, some pop up and sell fast, others just sit but they all look to be the same?

[1pc@atime]

Everything that I've got from Intel, AMD, NCR,or Harris here is in jewel cases or on foam sheets in small drawers. Most of the RCA chips are individually boxed in sleeves.

Most op amps, particularly those from Motorola, RCA, and Texas Instruments are bulk packaged in bags in lots of 2,500 to 20k.
For example, one box of NE555P 8 pin chips weighs 21 lbs. The quantity is listed as 20,000 pieces. The UPS shipping label is from 1986. There are many different part numbers boxed like this in various quantities.

[soundaudio]

New here, not sure how this turned up in my search today but it reminded me of my early working days in the 70'.

While not necessarily CPU chips, I used to work for a company that built logic control systems for manufacturing, primarily automation control systems. We would get IC chips in barrels from various companies, the main cpu's would be shipped in proper foam cards or individually but general circuits were shipped in bulk, as were many RAM chips. The most common were boxed bags of 500 pcs, often from RCA or Motorola. Op Amps were shipped much the same way. The girls who assembled boards would get them through 'shaker bins which oriented them into trays for board placement before being floated. Rarely did a finished board not pass QC. Those that did just got tossed.
I often took those home to salvage the components.
In the early days, even though inventory control was tight, no one said anything if a few pieces here and there followed you home at night. The floors of the place were always littered by the end of a shift with pieces that fell from the bench or got dropped. My take was they didn't pay much for any of the components back then as there was little concern over loss of a few pieces. Home experimenting was actually encouraged as it made the techs more familiar with the product.
I've likely still got a few bags of chips we used then, bagged up in nothing more than a common plastic bag like a bag of Halloween candy at the dollar store. A few p/n's would come in huge cardboard barrels, shipped four to a pallet. The barrels started to show up in the late 70's when they started to see product from Asia.

It began a change in how parts were prepped for assembly, several new stations were added where parts were sorted and grouped before being 'plated' on trays for the assembly line to place and float. When they closed up in 84 most of us helped ourselves to the inventory as we were instructed to dumpster it all. I know I took home over 100 boxes of various parts and I filled my fan with the parts bins out of the storeroom. It certainly gave me a lifetime supply of parts to tinker and experiment with. Others did the same. The lab room had over 300 of those small 60 drawer bins of components on their benches. I took every last one of them, and the benches back then. We were afraid at the time it might have been our last paycheck so we took anything that wasn't nailed down. In the end our checks all cleared so the free stuff was a bonus. I had a major advantage driving a conversion van at the time. The E250 Clubwagon held a ton of parts.

[Guest]

I found this page searching google for some info on a few old chips I found in my piles of parts.

I worked for a number of years for a company that built automated sprinkler/irrigation system control panels and controls in the mid to late 70's until around 1988.

We used avarious early Intel chips for the main control boards, those came shipped in tubes in huge lots at first, then as the cpus got larger they came in trays on foam. All other ic chips were bulk boxed loose in bag lined cardboard boxes. This included the RAM chips.
The assembly process was a small assembly line, about 20 women sitting and placing components on pc boards. Last to be dropped in place was the CPU socket. Once populated, the boars would go on to pass over a float solder station, then on to a wash stage, then to CPU install and testing before being either sent to the stock room shelves. Various components were shipped in different ways, small resistors, capacitors, diodes, relays etc were bulk shipped in 20 lbs boxes of smaller quantity bags. Larger power resistors were often on belt strips or rolls. IC sockets were loose bagged in 250 quantity. Early on the smaller Intel CPUs came in the long tubes, then they came in trays, starting with the x86 chips and similar. Those who fed the assembly line would dump the tubes into smaller foam lined trays about three tubes per tray, it was their job to make sure no one on the assembly line ran out of pieces to install.

At testing, there were occasional failures, but most were soldering 'errors' or bridges not faulty chips. On occasion there's be a bad ram chip or an ecu that refused to respond but not often, maybe one or two a week out of thousands of boards being built.

We were never privy to the money side of things but the systems they were selling were not super costly, the boards only had a value then of about $80 or so retail. They had next to nothing in each board in the end though.
If board failed, and a simply CPU swap didn't solve the issue it got tossed in the dumpster. Most of the time they didn't even try to fix it, it just go tossed at the testing point.

As a tinkerer at home at the time I took quite a few of the failed boards home just to salvage the components. The CPU's were not always Intel, the one board had a CPU made by Motorola, an 8 bit 6800 chip along with an 8 bit Intel 8080, both continued for better than a decade as the product never changed much over that period. At about the end of 1987 they sold out/closed up and everything on the shelves got tossed in the dumpsters. A competitor bought the rights to their patent and branding and the owners walked away or retired. I took home more than a truck load of components, including full unopened boxes of resistors, transistors, various chips, and hardware. Most of it is still in my garage, its come in handy over the years for odds and ends but the IC chips are mostly of no use in anything I mess with now.

I listed a few of the old chips a few years ago on eBay but got no interest, ost got tossed unless it was something I thought may be useful to me. I think I sold two Motorola 6800 chips and one 6808 chip over a couple of years back in 2020. I had dozens of the 4004 and 4003 chips but most were in plastic not ceramic. I did have a few ceramic versions but those were gone early on in production there.

I just went browsing through the book mentioned early in the post here and the prices in that book look optimistic at best, I had/have many in there and if eBay is still an indicator, nothing sells anywhere close to what that book says they're worth. To me, that make them worthless or in decline. Maybe I missed the 'good years' value wise but from recent past sales I see nothing making even listing them worth my trouble. let alone dealing with all the typical eBay issues selling small items.

[CPUShack]

If ya have any extra let me know, I could be interested in a bulk buy

[D.8080]