Seeking a keypunch and discussion

[Chuck(G)]

I can recall seeing more Univac 1701 keypunch keyboards on the surplus market than the keypunches themselves. Nice unit--more advanced than the 029s.

[g4ugm]

hi Dave,

as much I find it annoying I might try to wrangle him down in that case. however it has sat there for ages and he has not reduced the price. I fear he might be on the more bone-headed side. Money is quite tight right now as well and I have another thing happening so I will see if I have enough after to try and wrangle him down.

I do know the price. Technically Nothing. Something is worth only as much as people are willing to pay also these machines are a bastard to ship from what I have heard. £1000-1500 is what I consider reasonable so the US one is on the upper edge of that bound (I have seen them sell for this much but not much more). For the Spanish one I wouldn't pay more than £1250. Even if my other deal goes through to my side I couldn't afford more than that including shipping it.

(I have bought from that seller in the US before and he gets his prices pretty much dead on all the time)

Aren't there so many on the "bone headed" side! I agree that "value" its what some one will pay, and I think the best way to find that is an auction. You need to make people fight for things.

I think when sticking things on with a high starting value you are on a hiding to nothing. Best you can hope is some one will buy it and re-list it saying "look what the last one sold for".

However I would have thought multiple people would pay around £1000. Given the state it is in I am not sure that that wouldn't still be "over priced". Spares are hard to get and expensive. I think I might start at €500.

Reminds me of the "lady" who was trying to get a similar price for a Series/1 but could not accept that it had no intrinsic value other than scrap. She listed it on E-bay , Facebook Market Place and finally in a private auction. As far as I know she still has it!.

[Alsilisk]

well thanks for the help guys I will let you know if I get anywhere

[fat265]

The barcelona one sent me a offer for 1000 Euro less than listed price. A bit too high for me but still tempting considering I am very impatient when I want something but will need to add a heap for shipping.

Agreed to previous comment start auction at normal prices it will sell then

[Qbus]

Back in the late eighties when I was working up in Philadelphia I would often go to a company called TMET or something like that up in north Philadelphia and they were an electronics recycler. They sold a ton of old DEC LA-36 serial printers for people to use back with the old first apple 2 and S-100 series computers. One part of the operation broke down systems for metal recovery and they had several brand new IBM-360 systems they were rendering at the time. I once bought a PDP-8 with expansion chassis with an additional 4 k of ram for $200 there. They closed in the early nineties and Fred who did all the sales opened up another surplus operation further north up around Roxboro, Think Fred last name was Chassis and would assume he is not around any more.
He also sold small used components and fittings at all the Ham Fest around the North East.
I have come across similar surplus operations later in Washington but the issue is those places don’t seem to last too long and they are gone.
Think at the end of the day is just to keep looking, things turn up. Sometimes for cheap sometimes you have to pay more, others you find people just want to get rid of things. The trick is to first have the space for all the stuff, second is to be able to afford it and third is to live long enough.
Man there will be one hell of an estate sale for me, vintage computers, radios, vehicles and tons of other stuff.

[bifo86]

Aren't there so many on the "bone headed" side! I agree that "value" its what some one will pay, and I think the best way to find that is an auction. You need to make people fight for things.

I think when sticking things on with a high starting value you are on a hiding to nothing. Best you can hope is some one will buy it and re-list it saying "look what the last one sold for".

However I would have thought multiple people would pay around £1000. Given the state it is in I am not sure that that wouldn't still be "over priced". Spares are hard to get and expensive. I think I might start at €500.

Reminds me of the "lady" who was trying to get a similar price for a Series/1 but could not accept that it had no intrinsic value other than scrap. She listed it on E-bay , Facebook Market Place and finally in a private auction. As far as I know she still has it!.

In the used/vintage car market, these people are referred to with the commonly found phrase 'I know what I got'. The problem with our hobby is that most people have absolutely no frame of reference for the value of anything, so to anyone unfamiliar with the existence of people like us, it's either 'nobody wants this old garbage, scrap it' or 'someone will pay me a real mint for this' and few and far between.

That being said, people who sell items like these and ask big money are usually trying to sell to companies in need of legacy replacements. The american seller seems at least to understand that there is a hobbyist community out there but is hedging between selling it for the big money on the random chance that there's some company that needs to actually needs a keypunch in 2020 and trying to set it up for an auction among enthusiasts. For equipment like this, with such a tiny market of interested enthusiasts, you'd need a specialized auction for it that could try to advertise it in all of the communities, and even then it's always a matter of timing. Now is definitely not a good time for anyone.