Rare Apples, eBay, Goodwill

[Chad Fernandez]

Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> Looking up a computer model in a price guide and picking a price out of
> the price range suggested, or in the very least using it as a general
> guide for selecting a price is, I believe, a few steps below designing
> rockets.

No it's not rocket science, but I never cease to be amazed at what some 
people find difficult.  If a person doesn't know about something, or 
have any interest in it, and possibly won't give much attention to 
detail, you'll end up with Apple //s priced as Apple 1s because they're 
both Apples.  Granted, you aren't going to find an Apple 1 at Goodwill, 
but it could be Macs and Apple //s, or some other brand.  Furthermore, 
they'll be no telling them any different because they looked it up in 
the book!  In other words, for someone outside the realm of classic/used 
computers the book is taken as law, if even applied to the correct 
model, when the book is actually only a guide understood by someone 
inside the realm of classic computers.

Besides, Goodwill isn't the place to buy classic computers, its the 
place to buy old stuff other people didn't want.  They may have a 
classic computer, but I'm not going to give them a classic computer 
price, because Goodwill doesn't specialize selling in classic computers. 
  They specialize in selling old stuff other people don't want, and 
they've treated it as such..... they probably know nothing about it, 
they haven't tested it beyond possibly trying to power it up.  They got 
it handed to them buy someone that pulled up in a car, asked the person 
if they wanted a receipt, plopped it into a cart, and later someone shot 
it with a price gun and plopped it on a shelf next to the pile of cheap 
cameras, and then 2 customers picked it up shook it, and a third put a 
hair dryer on top of it, because the hair dryer was in the way of them 
looking at a Lloyd cassette deck.

Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA