MEGA-Source of Vintage CPUs, chips Boards & Rare Tubes!

[johnorun]

I have spent some serious phone & email time for the past several months with a cool Retired gent in New Mexico that has accumulated a Warehouse full of vintage Electronic & Lab equipment from Gov't. surplus auctions that he has attended for several years.
He said he now has about 150-160,000 pounds of stuff to liquidate and it may take him 5 years to do it!

Included in this are 2-3 SEMI-Trailor loads of Government surplus circuit boards dating from the 1940's to 2005! He also has about a dozen 5-gallon buckets full of chips that that he has pulled as collectible, including some C4004s.
He sells large quantities of this material to S. America and Africa, where vintage material is still used as replacement parts for aging computers etc.

I could go into many other details, but I need to keep this to the point.
Here is his quote about the sources of this fascinating material:

"Here in New Mexico it is a high tech Mecca! Located here are, the Sandia National Laboratories (8,000+ employees including over 3,000 Phd's), The Los Alamos National Laboratories, The US Air Force Deep Space and Phillips Laboratories, the world's largest semiconductor plant (Intel, with over 5,000 employees & over 3,000,000 square feet in size), Honeywell Corporation (2 plants), General Electric, CTS Corporation, Sumitomo Sitix Silicon Inc., three US Air Force Bases, The White Sands Missile Range, The University of New Mexico, New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology and hundreds of other supporting companies.
All of these companies create large quantities of high tech surplus which is sold mostly at public auction which I, unfortunately, am addicted to."

I have asked him several times to send me some sample pics of what he has, but he is too backed up with orders to even do that.
At this point, he has invited me to spend a day with him to inspect his warehouse and help him locate the types materials we, as collectors, would like to buy.
I would jump on a flight today if I could, (I can't) but I may be able to make a stopover to New Mexico to meet him in early October, on my return from a Phoenix, AZ conference, that I will be attending. If this happens, I'll be in touch-believe me!
There will be a fair way for all of us to acquire what we want. (Maybe a "Debs style" Auction with NO SNIPING allowed! --Is that applause I hear?)

Keep your fingers--err, chips-- crossed and hope that this turns into the opportunity of a CPU collectors' lifetime.
I won't post about this again, unless something good happens....

Cheers,
-John

PS- Here are 2 photos of a sample of one of his vacuum tubes from a research lab:

[Wizzard1]

Wow, count me in!!


And I agree, auctions with set ends makes for shill bidding and sniping.

Let's have a real auction: 2 hours may pass after the last bid to declare the winner, after a 5 day viewing and bidding period, to that effect.

[Chiefish]

Sonds cool , lets hope for good luck. That is one big tube there, looks like he might have some interesting stuff, altho you cant really tell by one picture.

[johnorun]

Keep those auction ideas written down, so if this happens, we'll be ready to move quickly.

...and Yes, he DOES have TONS of interesting stuff. ( Our tax donations always buy the best , except we rarely get to see it, let alone get hold of some of it.)
I hope we get it before someone else with deep pockets buys it all up.

[hugo929]

wish you would fetch plenty of C4004/C4040 and many many other rare stuffs!

[wepwawet]

Sounds pretty good, keep us updated!

[el_gecko]

Nice contact. Good job
I'm in too!

[D.8080]

Count me in, that is really good for us, really thanks man!!

[andamus]

I'm in too

[Jedi08]

Keep us informend.

I´m in for a complete set of grey C4004

[cocoe]

Yeeeeessss !!!!! Keep us informed because we are interested.

Thanks for your interest !

[wepwawet]

Hehe, how many C4004 are a complete grey C4004 set?

[johnorun]

I have no idea what I may find in New Mexico?

I did check airline schedules and for about $150 extra, I could stopover in New Mexico on my October 5th flight between Phoenix and Chicago to meet the owner for about 4 hours, before the last flight on to Chicago. That should be enough time to uncover any stuff that we collect.
Now I have to find a way to budget for this, since cash flow is tight ATM.
If I can't review the material in person, it will just take him longer to get around to finding and cataloging it, because he runs his whole operation by himself.
So, don't plan on completing a C4004 set just yet....

- John

[LKG01A]

if you can ship to Europe, count me in too (looking for 4004, 4040, 8008, 8080 ) ^^

[D.8080]

4004, we all want them, should we plan a lottery?