ENDING CPUS'S COLLECTION ERA?

[edwardauskis]

Yesterday end johnorun's auction on ebay. Nice ceramic on board MCS4 SET. Won bider with price 122$...Last year I sold on ebay auction PLASTIC MCS4 SET for ~160$! Last year, december on ebay auction (not my) sold RapidCad SET for ~36EURO!!! What do you think Dear Members about this? Loss of interest collect chips? Everything must all? Seen collectors internet portals, most of them last updated 2009-2011 years...

[frag_]

Collectible items prices always have a tendency to fluctuate a lot.
And there are not so many cpu collectors, each have different tastes and wallets,
each chip can affect prices for the next similar one.
Condition, description, time, all matters.
Excluding chips with stable high demand like c4004, mcs6502,
final auction prices on many others often are impossible to predict.

[CPUShack]

Untested and soldered may have been reflected in that auction

Someone got a deal though, its a very uncommon sspec on a D4004

[Guest]

I always assumed that the collectors would be predominately from older generations, the ones who grew up during the time of the items relevancy. And once those collectors needs where filled the demand and thus prices would fall. At least that’s my hope so that someday in the future I may obtain some CPUs I’m not willing to pay today’s prices for. What do you suppose is the average age of collectors within this forum?

[Marcin]

I totally agree with fraq. Rare CPUs are always desirable. We are not so huge community like stamps, coins collectors but many of us are overworked and we are getting less and less free time for hobby.

CPU prices are at stable/high level in my opinion. 10 years ago were much cheaper but accessibility is much less.

CPU prices are like wave similar to gold price or currency. You must live with it If you think they are low ? so maybe it is time to buy more

PS. A few years ago plastic MCS-4 sets were available for 55 USD BIN at eBay

[apa4]

frag_ and Marcin made a very good point.

[lhf_james]

I'm quite happy to have the same board from the same machine...
In my opinion, if John didn't take the unit apart, instead try to power it up (it's quite easy lol), take some pictures and sell the whole CPU assembly, it will end with much higher price. See the picture below, isn't it a tidy and tempting unit?


And yes we may be experiencing the low level of CPU collecting. As for me, I'm quite busy now and can't have much time for finding more CPUs. But I think 'rare' and 'old' CPUs (like ES and CPUs before 1980s) are still getting fewer and fewer as time goes, and are becoming harder to find. So I'm quite positive with the future of collecting

[edwardauskis]

[Libkin]

Good question. I think that dynamics of forum activity can be one of the markers.

And I see also many collectors selling their collections.

Misha.

[Guest]

[edwardauskis]

[apa4]

[Guest]

[Libkin]

I'm 32...

[lhf_james]

I'm 24 so far... Maybe the youngest here? xD