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I'm looking for a card reader for my HP41CV and I found on ebay around USD 100,00. A question, Do they really want to sell or this item is made of gold? I'm thinking about make a fortune with my HP 42... ;)

I guess they look at what they paid for it, consider how much that would be in today's dollars, and divide by 10 :-)

When I bought my calculator (41CV) it cost an absolute fortune, and the card reader was likewise hugely expensive.

The 41CV cost the equivalent of the cost of my University education for 1 year. (OK, just the books and stuff -- but that was all we had to pay :-)

If I were to look at equivalent text books and Guild membership today...

Someone will pay that much so other people can ask that much. But then if you search around you can probably find plenty of 41 card readers for under $10 or even free. Most 41C items are extremely common. You have to decide whether you want to find them or pay someone else to do it for you.

Where can you find a card reader for $10? Unfortunately some people live in rural area so finding these items is hard. The local Knights of Columbus rummage sale runs more toward old video games than scientific paraphernalia. Sometimes we have to pay the price.

Swap meets, thrift shops, flea markets, surplus stores, liquidators, government auctions, college bulletin boards, coworkers, friends etc. I've had a lot of stuff just given to me once I asked. I've made offers on HPs sitting on desks of strangers. I visit businesses to see what they have lying around. Government agencies often have old stuff in storage and it's tricky but it can be retrieved at no cost with some schmoozing.

The Internet can work too but you have to avoid the obvious places. Obviously, this is not the place where I'm going to announce my good Internet fishing holes but I'm sure that there are at least 1000 good places that I haven't found.

You don't "have" to pay the price but if that's more convenient for you then that's fine. I consider myself a collector so paying someone else to do my hobby for me doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If I just needed a gadget for my job, I'd probably get it on ebay too. Especially if it's my employer's money :-)

Steve, Your Aussie dollar is only about .55/US dollar. It must make it tough. When I was there last year, everything seemed cheap by US standards. Cheers mate.

Actully, I meant 0.55/Australian dollar

I think you missed my point Jim, I wish I could visit all the type of places you mentioned on a weekly basis but unfortunately I don't have a University near by and I don't live in a technology corridor. Would you drive 2-4 hours, one way on the off chance of stumbling onto a decent bargan? My time is worth something, if I use $20/hour as a really low value for my time a 4 hour round trip means I can pay $80 more than you on ebay and still be money ahead. A lot of other people are in the same boat as me so we have to look harder at the best tool we have at hand, the internet. I'm sure your right about other places to find HP stuff on the web and I understand you protecting your sources. I'm looking for those places myself and if I find one don't expect an email from me.
Don't get me wrong, I'll love to pick up a $2 HP anything locally but it aint going to happen near here. Perhaps people in your area advertise calculators and card readers on the wall at the local tavern or grocery store like a lot of people do here for shotguns,duck decoys and the "free to good home mixed Lab-German shepard puppies"?
By the way, let me know if your in the market for some slightly used fillet knive from the local slaughter house, they usually go for $15 a barrel, but if you take a truck load you can cut the price pretty good.

Dane, I don't see what point you think I missed. You asked where you could buy card readers for $10 and I told you. I'm not in the business of retailing old calculators so I'm nor "worth" anything per hour when I'm collecting. It's just a hobby for me. I don't understand how you manage to make an $80 profit off a card reader bought for $100 on eBay but it's fine with me that you do.

Jim, my point was and still is some of us don't have access to the outlets you do to find HP stuff. Don't look down your nose at us if we use ebay or pay more than you would for an item, we dont have much choice. So your statement that "you can probably find plenty of 41 card readers for under $10 or even free" maybe valid where you live but I will guarantee you could spend 10 years looking here and not find one at any price. They may be falling off trees there but I, and many others, are not where they are plentiful. Thats why I can rationalize paying more for an item than you think is prudent, my $80 example was simple an attempt to show you why.

Dane I've bought them all over. If anything, I think my state is below average. It's really more developing the skill or the nose. My single best buy got me 174 calcs (57 HPs) plus accessories for $205. It was done on the phone at a distance of over 800 miles. I was merely pointing out to Marx that he has OPTIONS. It appeared that he didn't like the option he was seeing on ebay. That's why I said "You have to decide whether you want to find them or pay someone else to do it for you."

Yes, getting the low price is usually trickier than getting the high price. I thought that was too obvious to state but there it is.

Jim you are either lucky, talented or spend a lot of time searching. More power to you. Some of us are as not so much collectors as just interested in the technology. I went to college in the mid 80's and I find the applications for the 41 fascinating and much less complicated than computers today but just as effective. I have a computer at home, us them extensively at work, own a palm Vx and am amazed every day that you can't buy a calculator that is as simple, versatile and as well built as the HP calcultors of the 70's and 80's. So while you may take pride and pleasure in picking up 174 calculators for $208, I would have to figure out what to do with the 172 I don't have any interest in and my only thought is to swap or sell then so I can by something else I'm interested in. Your hobby and motivation is different than mine, if all I need to add to my "collection" is a card reader and a printer I may just pay $100 to get them. I get a kick out of using it NOT finding it in a place no one else is looking. You sound like you like finding them more than I do and your right it is easier to do it my way but may cost more. By the way, I am looking for a card reader, if you can find one for $10 I'll gladly double you money.

Dane, I'm not even sure what we're talking about anymore. Hopefully, though, Marx got the message that there are alternatives if he chooses.

I recently interviewed several contractors for a home repair job. The cheapest one wanted $700. I did it myself for $80. It required common and cheap materials and only modest skill that I got from a DIY pamphlet. Does revealing this information to you make you think I'm looking down my nose at you? It's certainly not meant that way. You can still hire the contractor if you please. Many people do and are happy with that choice. But if you complain about the price *LIKE MARX DID*, I'm going to suggest the DIY alternative. And no I'm NOT going to do it for you unless you're very pretty single young woman who can appreciate a man with a calculator fixation. :-)

Will you sell me one for $10? If you will, I'll send you my address. Otherwise, it's worth more than $10.

I too have found 41C equipment to be quite easy to come by. I would estimate that the average price I've paid for 41C card reader to be under $10. Don't get me wrong - the HP-41C series is great stuff but there really is a lot of it to be found. (I'm ignoring a few shipments that were sent to me specifically because I run this website.)

None of it will be given to someone who wants me to send it to him merely to prove that it is cheap. I'm not going to sell you one for $1000 either so they must be worth a fortune. :-) I certainly have no interest in selling these items at $10 and watching them show up on ebay. I learned that by watching the EduCalc closeout sale.

Instead, they tend to trickle back out slowly, often for free to "good causes" or get traded or used as "prizes" for things like scanning manuals. I don't talk about this a lot because "good causes" start coming out of the woodwork when I do and demand for free items always exceeds supply.

Lately, I've refused more offers of free or cheap 41C items than I've accepted. I just haven't had the time to be a clearing house. I've tried to direct them to the classifieds.

So what Jim says seems true to me. There's a lot of stuff out there. What Dane says is probably also true - there are probably "bad neighborhoods" for finding calculators. And the fact that you can sell them for $100 on ebay is also true.

Thanks Dave, I was only trying to illustrate that some areas are not good hunting grounds. Thanks also for this site, I've recently returned to the HP fold, the information and advice here is priceless. I hope someday I can contribute something to the site.

That's totally silly. The mere monetary value of something varies, and is only one factor, as Dave has pointed out. Ridiculous statements like this one are only justification for astronomical prices asked by unscrupulous sellers out to make a buck.

Joe

This whole thread was started by someone looking for a card reader for his 41. Many people (more than not) are looking for readers for their own calculator rather than for selling them on eBay.

If someone has lots of readers (more than they really need; as was mentioned elsewhere; or can easily obtain them for $10) and are not willing to share (or sell cheap) to someone in need, then that is proof that they have more value that what they were obtaing for.

Telling someone where to look (when that place does not exist in their area) is not helping much, especially when that person telling could do someone a favor and help the new collector out. But I guess "favors" do now exist here.

The fact is, the original poster was in need of a reader. He was from Brazil. Do you really think these readers are a dime a dozen in Brazil, like you claim they are here? If you have a reader; one you got cheap; have extras; could spare one; and don't want to help someone like that, then the reader has considerable value more than $10. QED!

That's the most truthful I've ever read!

I'm from Spain, and there the HP calculator era began but very recently with the spreading all around of the HP-48. I could easily find a used HP-48 calculator in my country nowadays, but before that HP calculators where known but to many many few. Figure that I considered the possibility (very roughly though) of bidding on that $100 card reader. I discarded it quickly however because I think it has not this value at all (at least for me). Now what else can I do? --wait for the great occasion :-)

Mike - did I ever say that card readers are WORTH $10 or have a value of $10? I don't believe I did. If I did, I apologize as I didn't mean it.

What I believe I said was that it isn't hard to PAY $10 for a card reader. After PAYING $10, that doesn't mean you have to SELL it for $10.

Think of any product you like. What's it worth? The parts cost? The total manufacturing cost? The manufacturer's price? The distributor's price? The retailer's price? If you don't like the retail markup, you're welcome to try to bypass him. It may require some effort - sorry.

As for favors: have you ever heard the thing about teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish? Yes fishing involves effort and may involve travel. If you don't like that then pay the retail price of a fish and be happy! I don't consider it my mission in life to feed "starving" calculator collectors.

Well at least one thing has come out clear of all that. This card reader value was not $99 in the end since nobody buyed it. Seems like the seller will need to put a more juicy worm on the hook next time if he/she wants to sell :-)

End of the story

Dan's HP-97 parts give-away is just one example, however, most of the favors on an Internet forum are in the form of information and not all of it will apply to you. I'm just glad that when Reinhard noted that you can get better prices on German ebay that no one demanded that he translate all the German auctions for us. ;-)

Hmmmm. Sounds like somebody is in a state of Denial. If you believe that, then you must believe that Clinton pardoned Marc Rich out of the goodness of his heart and not because Denise Rich (who has a 42-inch chest and made lots of trips to the White House when Hillary wasn't around) made funny-money campaign contributions.

Irregardless of what anybody says, here's my bottom line: I hate:

1. bloodsuckers who ask sky-high prices for stuff on the classifieds

2. price gougers who ask sky high prices on eBay (I'm convinced there's a conspiracy here)

3. snipers on eBay who crawl out from under their rocks, STEAL from those who play by the rules, and then retreat into their burrows until the next time.

Value and Worth are absolutely irrelevant when a seller KNOWS an item is not worth the asking price, but he asks anyway. Total scum in my book.

My 2 cents. Sorry to vent.

Rich

But in this time you can work and earn $80 (or more), so this can be a concern of money too, even if you don't make a business with calculators. Besides that, I'm pretty sure, that the work of us collectors is worth more than $20/hour anyway (it depends on the circumstances, if somebody wants to pay it, but I'm sure, it's worth more for the majority...).

That's the reason, why nobody can afford repairing calculators commercially. Nearly all of the people offering repairs seem to do that as a favour for the community and charge a small sum just as an acknowledgement of their work. They just have fun with it. You couldn't afford an electronics engineer, whose job is fixing calculator (or at least, you wouldn't want to pay the price).

I'm working in a University and I once got 3 HP-21s and a Nice HP-80/45 box (you know, the black one) just for the asking. This possibilities do exist, but you have to be lucky. There are no obvious government auctions here in Austria (or, at least, I didn't find them til now), so I, in my case I depend on eBay for getting a lot of devices.

> And no I'm NOT going to do it for you unless you're very pretty single young woman who can appreciate a man with a calculator fixation. :-)

ROFL :-)

I have to note, that this was in the time, when the national eBays had different databases.

In general, there's a few of German collectors who sometimes seem to be much crazier sometimes, than the people in America. Thank God, I have most of the common calculators already (and some rare pieces too, like my prototype 71B).

Interestingly the second prototype 71B offered on U.S. eBay (I don't remember when, must be 18 months ago) went to Germany...

I think, I couldn't afford beginning my collection nowadays.

I do not often look at German eBay, just because most of the items are overpriced or too new or crap... There are not much offers too...

The item I mentioned was an especially large portion of luck. I was bored and entered "HP 01" and saw, that one was going in two hours!!! I got it complete and boxed boxed for an apple and an egg.

BTW: Dave, I really believe, that your "prices and rarity" page is a part of the pressure driving the prices higher and higher. That's the reason, I wanted you (and the community) to know, that there are also some cheap offers.

Sure, that every seller wants to sell his item for the highest price in the list and sure, that the buyers are prepared paying the price. (I know it, because I surely have a prominent place in the prices section - I'm one of the ~$600 "red dots" and some other of my eBay bids are in the list too).

I'm pretty sure, that there's some sort of speculation, like it is in all collecting markets.
When it's "out" collecting old and (for actual work) "worthless" calculators the prices will break down, like the prices for oldtimers did years ago.

Yes, I'm prepared for the flames now...

This all won't matter for me, because I'm not speculating. It just hurts sometimes, but I wasn't that crazy buying the extremely overprized 9100A (though I'd want to have one, maybe for $10 :-) ).

Years ago people constantly asked me what things were worth and weren't satisfied with non-answers so I started tracking and publishing them. (I resisted for several years.)

Now I get complaints about the high prices shown there all the time. I also get complaints whenever I miss (or ignore) the latest ebay record. I understand that a high price there can cause the "I can bid $5 more than that" effect.

These days the prices are almost pure ebay. I've always had a policy of not including flea market prices because that makes the price for every calculator something like $2-300. I'm not convinced that averaging $2 and $300 presents a useful answer either.

I'm open to suggestions on how to make them more useful or more realistic or...

I understand that but I think it's a mistake to account for hobby time at working rates. 1 hour saved at my hobby doesn't cause me to work 1 hour more. Thought about that way it costs me about $70 to go watch a movie. I should hire some kid to go watch movies for me :-)

If it's a business it's different but I think it's a lot easier to make money on ebay buying them my way then to be buying them on ebay.

What does the Austrian government do with its old junk? Throw it out? If so, you need to find the right people to schmooze :-)

C'mon, let's be free. I hate the idea of being a slave and I won't be a ebay's high-prices slave just to maintain my hobby. I'm thinking in go back for my Fender stratocaster playing hobby and wait the things calm down. There are many other no expensive hobbies.
Marx

Dave,

I've noticed that professionals who track the prices of collectable items simply record every price that they know of (from an auction or a private sale) over the past XXX time period. This avoids having to resort to statistics. All prices are simply included, regardless of condition and accessories included as long as the item isn't just "junk". You've done that to some extent on the price list, but you don't state the time period nor list every price.

For starters watching just ebay and the classified ad section here would provide a lot of data. Of course it would be a fair amount of work to track all this, but perhaps some of this can be farmed out to volunteers. Or you could simply limit it to just the most collectable (i.e., highest priced) machines.

-Katie

rich; 1)i agree with you but it doesn't make me mad since i don't really collect. i decided that while collectors and greedy sellers are both driving up the prices; they are also both keeping lots of fine machines from being used for landfill. 2) irregardless is not a standard english word. between your vocabulary and my punctuation and spelling, berlitz is going to get dave thrown off the net. marx; there is always brazil's national hobby: "art appreciation". the "art" is so beautiful there.

Unfortunately, I'm finding that I'm not getting a lot of price reports these days. I used to get them frequently in previous years. Also, some of the web dealers I used to check have disappeared. This is why most of what's in the price list these days is what I see on ebay.

Perhaps just a list of prices is a good idea, but I think I need much more data than I'm getting right now.

If people contacted you when they got something for a good price, the ebay effect (i.e. the escalation of average prices on your list) could be countered.

The appearance of lower prices on your list *may* have an effect on ebay prices, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Pity those of us with currency falling with respect to the US Dollar!

Yeah, I know "irregardless" isn't a word. I wanted to check and see how many people would notice. I shoulda used "disirregardless". Sorry about that. ;-)

Rich

It also looked strange to me, but who am I to explain some people their mother tongue?

Anyway, I think I'll use it in some speeches to put other people to the test. The adverb form sounds even better ("irregardlessly" or "disirregardlessly"). One of the long words we German-speaking people like to see (or to hear).

When some of my friends are unsure about their English speaking performance, I always tell them listening to the Japanese :-)

Sorry, whoever reads this, I didn't want to insult somebody.

db:
What do you mean with word "art"?

How about plain old regardless, that may even be in the dictionary!

marx; that was kind of obscure, wasn't it?. art as in: the brazilian women that i saw were so beautiful that a bad polaroid of 90% of them would belong in an art museum. and i never got any farther than tabatinga, where they are only average. so "art appreciation" includes waiting for a taxi while thanking god for the wonder and diversity of creation. what does this have to do with calculating? not much since i never learned to even learned to count past three in portugese.

good idea steve. and be patient with the exchange rate; it probably won't look this unfavorable in a year.
so dave, here's my addition to your list per steve's suggestion: one broken but fixable (now fixed, knock on wood) half nut cx, one not running but fixable (now running) 82143a, and a 41 card reader with cards, all for free from a retired former boss. two seperate people each turned me on to two ex-mem chips, which gives the 41 room to store 299!! points using northings and eastings only. i'm not gloating; this and my marriage are the only two places where life has been overly generous. i'm just following steve's logic and trying to weigh the insane average prices down a bit. and tell me; do you think they give me this stuf for the entertainment value of watching someone actually use these things nowadays?

I need some help, my father recently passed away and in his garage was an old Victor adding machine. This thing weighs a ton. I know absolutely nothing about these things. The serial number is 154260. It is black with a pull handle and is approx. 16" by 9.5" You push the numbers then pull the crank. This is definetly no portable adding machine...Help!

Dave:

You probably ought to punt on this, and tell 'em how to go to eBay & do a "past auction" (or whatever the terminology is) search.

eBay IS the default collectors' marketplace, and nearly everyone knows about it now. It should provide a useful upper bound on prices, and unarguably realistic information on availability and cost through that venue.

A simple note like "If you can find things elsewhere, you may be able to do better . . . " should give hope on the low end of the price spectrum, without promising anything.

A useful service (that some programmer might consider) is a bot/crawler that would periodically do a series of specific, user-specified eBay "past item" searches and report the # of hits and the median, mean, deviation, etc. of their final prices. (I imagine such a service would be quite popular, if it doesn't exist already.)

The only help I can afford is to carry it for you when you move.;)
Pio

The English language is a living language, it evolves and expands every day, dictionaries just slow the natural evolution.

Feel free to invent new words as you see fit!

The technology business has been inventing new words for years, why should we stop now and follow the dictionary?

The proper place to talk about this is James Redin's site at www.dotpoint.com/xnumber, in the Forum. Beware, when you submit a message it takes one full minute to process.

I have a number of older victors, most have a display and seem to bring more with, but never as much as the shipping. Seems not to be many collectors of the big old printing calcs! Does make them cheap to collect, however, but they eat space and postage. The Victors seem to be among the best made.
Regards, Frank

db:
Lesson 1:
Um, dois, três, quatro, cinco(1,2,3,4 and 5)

Lesson 2:
As mulheres brasileiras são realmente lindas( brasilian women are really beautiful)

Lesson3:
Tell me next time you come here, I live in Manaus, and I think I can lead you to a museum.

just kidding...

Marx