Rare Apples, eBay, Goodwill

[John Foust]

At 09:37 AM 3/22/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
>Try looking in the phone book under "Thrift Stores".  The privately owned,
>for-profit chains are actually where you're more likely to find
>interesting old computer stuff.

That's true around here, too.  There are also non-Goodwill charity shops
with their own (different) policies.  I think all of these places suffer
(from out collecting perspective) from subjective or uninformed policies
about all goods - not just computer stuff.  

I see some charity shops run by senior-citizen volunteers around here who 
routinely toss what they consider to be "junk" (like old household goods) 
yet would fetch a good price if they marketed them correctly.  I routinely 
see graniteware (speckled-paint metal pans) and other 100-year-plus tin 
items in the dumpster.  Meanwhile, they're trying to sell 15-year-old 
mono monitors for $15.

But as with all of these places, eBay now serves as a convenient metric
to help determine what's valuable and what price to put on the tag.
If there's a name on the label, they can search for it.

- John