Michael Black wrote:
But in the seventies, at least around here, nobody wanted that stuff. I
remember getting some at a radio club auction, or just given to me, I'd
play with it a bit, then trade it off for something that at the time
seemed more interesting. Most of it wasn't in great shape, but that
PMR-8 mobile receiver was. I should have kept that.

Nobody wanted it because it was tubes, and it was AM. So this was "junk".
SO it was easy to get.

Then later, attrition worked it's ways, and people had regret for getting
rid of the stuff, or wanted the stuff they lusted after when younger, and
it became valuable. Since there was less of it, the price went up, too, to meet demand.

Same thing happened with antique radios. Virtually nobody was collecting
them in the sixties or early seventies, then slowly it became a hobby in
itself. I'm talking about broadcast radios. Home computers too, though
I'm not sure we've really hit the prime point for that. There too, at
one point it was easy to get ahold of "junk" computers, too simple to be
useful, but nobody much yet having the foresight to start collecting.


We've definitely not seen peak market for vintage computers. Amiga
equipment has been rising in value for the last decade, with demand
snowballing. Likewise vintage Apple equipment, although that's less
"fevered" than the Amiga collecting market, but stuff perceived as
"desirable" is achieving sillier and sillier prices. Console collecting has
gone crazy, too.

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STC // M0TEY // twitter.com/ukradioamateur