Offloading collection of hardware, software, magazines, and books

[ZenicReverie]

My father recently passed away, and I'm looking for the best way to offload this as most of it is sitting in a storage locker that I'd like to empty as much as possible within a month. I thought this might be of interest to the Apple II enthusiasts still out there. He had a small collection of hardware, a slightly larger collection of software, and an equally as large collection of magazines. Most of them are related to Apple II related, but some other classic platforms are represented. A lot of the software is still sealed in shrink wrap, as I believe he intended to start a business selling it, but didn't follow through. To give an idea:

 

Hardware: There's an Apple IIe and a 5 1/2" disk drive, and some other related hardware components floating by themselves. Unknown if they're actually in working condition.

 

Software: Very little in the way of games (these were sold off a decade ago), although there are still some empty boxes for those -- mostly I'm seeing word processing, Meca OS, SF Apple Core, and things like Basic, Pascal, etc; some tapes (Bomber!, Tarbell Zapple Z-80 2K Monitor, Air Raid, MCOS Source Code, Bright Pen, and a few that say TRS-80 like Galactic Empire), but mostly disks (I haven't started a list of these yet).

 

Magazines: They range from in quality from never touched, gently used, to heavy use but still mostly intact. Nibble, Compilist (I think), AppleSauce (seemed to be a newsletter group he was part of), Hardcore, Byte, SF AppleCore (seemed to be paired with the disks). There are also printed copies of newsletters like Tri-City... something, and an Orange County group.

 

Books: I haven't gone through them yet, but there are a couple boxes labeled Apple books and others that are general computer books, and there are manuals floating around like the user guide for Atari 400/800 (I know we had one in the house growing up, but didn't see it in storage yet--could still be hiding). There was a Z-80.. ZX-80, or something like that manual.

 

Apologies for the lack of a full list, the specifically named ones are from memory as we sorted through quickly this past weekend. I'll be back to the unit to do a full inventory over the next couple weeks. My current plan: List everything on eBay for auction all at once to get the most cross exposure of items.

 

For this thread, I'm looking for help from the community to answer these questions:

 

- What should I be looking for or keeping an eye out to set aside in case it comes to the point of junking everything in order to close the unit (it's costing money every month)?

- Where is this the best place to ask for help identifying hardware and software that may not be immediately obvious what it is?

- Is there a better place than eBay to list everything?

 

I'd like to find an archivist in the Greater Los Angeles area to digitize the magazines and newsletters if there's interest in doing that. I don't have the time or space to do it myself, and I'd rather not sell it on eBay (current plan) if it means it'd go into another storage collection without being made publicly accessible in a digital format. There's at least 20 banker boxes worth of magazines ranging from late 70s through the 80s. There's also a few tattered general engineering magazines (about the size of old Reader's Digest) from the 60s, not sure if those are of interest.

[Keatah]

Be sure and post at Applefritter. And ask the InternetArchive. Otherwise next stop *IS* eBay or the city dump.

 

[ZenicReverie]

Thank you. This was helpful. I'll set aside the items that aren't on the archive hoping to get in touch with someone to archive them.

[ZenicReverie]

If anyone can help identify the three lose boards I found (first nine pictures), I'd appreciate it. Also, any comments on usefulness of the software and particular books? I can't imagine anyone wanting these.

 

https://imgur.com/gallery/DezY3gX

[deepthaw]

10 hours ago, ZenicReverie said:

If anyone can help identify the three lose boards I found (first nine pictures), I'd appreciate it. Also, any comments on usefulness of the software and particular books? I can't imagine anyone wanting these.

 

https://imgur.com/gallery/DezY3gX

Of those loose cards, only the disk drive controller in box is for Apple II. And they're actually fairly valuable on eBay, IIRC. Rest of the boards look like assorted PC components (one's definitely a modem.) *edit* Looks like you have a Trident video card and two internal modems. Assuming they're all ISA going by their age, but I can no longer recognize those by sight. Trident card is the only one I'd imagine might have value. That one might be VESA local bus.

 

The official Apple manuals can fetch around $10-20 on eBay, so they're worth selling. Heck, I'd offer to buy them if I hadn't already spent way more than I should have so far this year getting my Apple II kitted out. None of the software looks remarkable, but I'm not a good judge of that.

Edited February 6, 2020 by deepthaw

[Keatah]

It is a VESA localbus card. It has value because other people on ebay jack up the prices for retrohardware. The modems are run of the mill. Otherwise they're a dime a dozen and millions have been e-cycled.

 

Manuals and books may sell for pennies on the dollar as people haven't fully appreciated the value of original documentation yet.

[Aunty Entity]

On 2/7/2020 at 5:31 AM, Keatah said:

It is a VESA localbus card. It has value because other people on ebay jack up the prices for retrohardware. The modems are run of the mill. Otherwise they're a dime a dozen and millions have been e-cycled.

 

Manuals and books may sell for pennies on the dollar as people haven't fully appreciated the value of original documentation yet.

Definitely a VESA video card, they didn't last long before PCI arrived.  Around the era of the DX2-66 range of processors.  So there are fewer of them around too.  Manuals and what have you, you need the right person in the right place.  Some people will pay, but they're generally heavy and expensive to ship.  Unidisk Controller is nearly gold... Interesting collection of manuals from a range of systems.

 

[taxman]

This posting has me depressed for 2 reasons: 1) Makes me feel old and 2) My kids are gonna have to sift through my junk one day.

 

Good luck with your sale.

[+Starwander]

If you end up not having any plans for the magazines and documents except for the trash let me know as I would be interested in them.

[ZenicReverie]

I'll be cataloging them this weekend (at least the magazines). Then I'll search through archive.org, and set aside any that aren't on there to later contact an archivist that might be interested. Everything else will go on ebay, and if they don't sell there, I'll let you know.

[CaptainBreakout]

I would be interest too... especially the magazines or books if they are published by COMPUTE!

 

[ZenicReverie]

I didn't get to it last weekend, took care of junking some e-waste instead, but I should be able to this weekend. I do remember some COMPUTE! magazines while doing initial sorting, didn't know they had books too. Is it obvious the books are published by them? Maybe I'll try to get through the books as well.

[bikibird]

On 5/1/2020 at 10:23 PM, ZenicReverie said:

I'll be cataloging them this weekend (at least the magazines). Then I'll search through archive.org, and set aside any that aren't on there to later contact an archivist that might be interested. Everything else will go on ebay, and if they don't sell there, I'll let you know.

I'm specifically looking for Nibble, Volume 2, #6.  Please contact me if you have this one.  There is an article titled "Silentype Double Hi-Res Printing" in it that I wrote.  Many years ago, due to circumstances beyond my control, I lost this magazine and I'm looking to replace it.  Willing to pay a reasonable price for it.

 

 

[ZenicReverie]

I'll keep an eye out for it; there were a lot of nibble mags, so I'm thinking there might be a good chance it's there. I underestimated how long it'd take to sort them all by title, so I didn't get a chance to take pictures. Next step is sorting by issue number, and I think I'll take pictures as I do that. If I find that issue, then I'll take pictures of the article for you. To be honest, I don't know what a reasonable price for any of this stuff might be, which is why I'm using ebay to help determine that.