Housing collections

[Jim Leonard]

Richard wrote:
> What do you do when your collection no longer fits in your office /
> spare bedroom / basement / garage?

That completely depends on the collection and the perserverence of the 
collector.  I am a relatively informal collector; I have mostly 8-bit and 
16-bit personal computers, about 30-35 units, a few in use/on display and most 
others in my basement crawlspace which is cool and dry.

The PDP-11 and other DECies here have collections that take up every spare 
ounce of space in the home, with some more in the shed out back.

And then there's Sellam, who has two large warehouses full of items and makes 
his living renting/selling software and hardware to collectors and lawyers (for 
legal dispute resolution).

> Do you downsize the collection to fit?

Depends on the situation.  I'm completely full, so when I grab a new unit I 
take stock of my collection and donate or *gasp* junk a unit to make room for 
it.  ebay, boxing and shipping things are very difficult for me due to working 
full time and having a young family (I don't have the time) so I am always at 
the same relative number of units.  (Before I get yelled at for junking things, 
I usually part them out or make sure they're completely worthless, like a 
486/66 or Pentium Pro 200, I have 3-4 of both of those.  I'm not throwing away 
perfectly good 5150 Rev A/B motherboards, for example ;-)

> I have talked with another local collector about finding a suitable
> location for storage/display of our collections.  

The "display" part intrigues me.  I've always wanted to put out a system for my 
kids to learn about, like a C64 or PCjr or Apple or classic Mac... but then I 
think of them getting their hands all over everything and I retract the idea. 
:-)  I would imagine many other collectors have a "look but don't touch" 
mindset... maybe I'm just being paranoid.

I've gotten past that fear by making sure I have duplicates of everything.  Two 
Tandy 1000s, two Mac 512s, a metric assload of PCjrs (I'm a big softie, what 
can I say), two C64s, etc., etc.  That way I don't have a problem wih the kids 
shattering keys as they bang on Microsoft Decathlon, as I'll have a backup.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)                    http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project?             http://www.mobygames.com/
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