1000+ old computer in Canada, for sale

[r.stricklin]

On May 25, 2007, at 12:01 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote:

> I'm about 12 miles away from this. If somebody gets it and can use  
> some labour loading up I can wander over to help.

I'm planning on heading up there Monday to turn over some rocks and  
see what runs out. Depending on what happens I may or may not be back  
to haul some or all away.

> In dollar terms I would wonder how one does a cost recovery just on  
> moving and storing it.

That's going to be the big problem. If it comes down to it and he  
expects some thousands of dollars, I'm going to have to walk away no  
matter how interested I am in some of the stuff.

With a large, unfocused collection like this where there has been  
little to no obvious upfront effort to cull uninteresting or non- 
useful items, the indirect costs beyond simple acquisition become  
huge very quickly.

Consider one possible highly optimistic outcome: the collection is  
purchased for $5000. 5% of it is of interest and worth keeping. This  
leaves 950 machines which must be disposed of. 35% of those can be  
sold to other listmembers or on eBay, with average closing values of  
$25 each (a few worth much more, most worth less). That's a  
theoretical maximum return of $8325, minus upfront costs of $5000...  
a net of roughly $3000. But, it takes you four months to sell them,  
with storage costing $600 per month, and you have to pay to dispose  
of all the stuff you couldn't sell. Maybe you break even, which would  
be the most realistic outcome of all the optimistic ones possible.

What happens if you can't sell as much of the stuff as you think you  
can, or for not as much money, and it takes you longer to do it?  
Collectors, considered as an entire population, can be fickle.

I've been burned way too many times on overly optimistic back-of-the- 
envelope calculations to be anything other than tremendously cautious  
about this opportunity. It's how you wind up with stuff you can't  
shift for love or money taking up dozens of valuable square feet of  
storage for years, like the pile of AlphaServer 4100s and HP C-class  
(180s, 200s, 240s, and 360s) machines I wound up with a couple years  
ago which suddenly nobody wanted at any price...

I guess that turned into a tiny little rant, there. Sorry about that.

ok
bear