Yesterday’s computers are finally treasured as historical artifacts.
And techies are waxing nostalgic for vintage models from Apple to Zenith–and paying good money for them.
“Most collectors are geeks –from kids, to people who’ve retired–who share an interest in technology,” said Sellam Ismail, a computer historian and consultant who owns more than 1,500 models and runs the semiannual Vintage Computer Festival www.vintage.org.
Prices are generally still low–$5 to $100 for computers that originally cost thousands of dollars from 1971 to the early 1990s. These include the popular Tandy Radio Shack laptops, Kaypro desktops and “transportables” (which could weigh more than 35 pounds) and most personal computers.
However, on eBay 125 items showed up in a recent search for “vintage computers,” with asking prices as high as $1,999. Values are climbing steadily and rare ones can be worth a fortune, especially if they are complete, in working condition and come with related accessories and software.
For example, the Apple 1–designed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in a California garage and sold as a kit in 1976 for $666.66–fetched $25,000 at an auction in 2000. The sale included manuals, marketing literature, BASIC computer language on cassette and other material.
Prices soared during the dot-com boom, when high-profile collectors like Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen competed fiercely for scarce items, some of them intended for museums.
But since the dot-com bust, prices have fallen, with another Apple 1 selling online for $14,000 in April. Still, values remain high for historically significant models and soared in the past year when the only price guide of its kind, “Collectible Microcomputers,” went from manuscript to print.
For example, an IBM 5100, a 50-pound microcomputer released in 1975 with a proprietary operating system, sold recently for $3,000.
