Anniversary edition calculators

[Andrew]

Hi

I used to work for HP, back in around 1989 they issued a couple of 50th Anniversary special edition calculators which were available apparently only to HP staff and HP special customers. The HP 32S and 14B Anniversary versions are mentioned on this site, but are the anniversary edition of these calculators of any particular interest to collectors? I only ask because I recently found both of these items which I bought when I worked for HP.
Andy

[S. Martin]

As with any HP calculator for which limited numbers were made, they are of special interest to collectors. In the near future it may well be that all hp calculators will be of interest to collectors once HP stops selling them for good.

Steve

[Andrew]

Thanks for your response, also thanks to all the people who e mailed me personally! This must be a very active site judging by the number of responses I get(only found it very recently).

In response to everyone who asked me if I want to sell these items...I dont know, as I have no idea what they are worth.
Have any of these ever been sold on EBAY or elsewhere and if so what sort of price do they attract?
Mine are absolutely mint and unused and in their original anniversary boxes and with all manuals, internal packing, adverts, brochures, slip case etc. They were opened once but only to remove the batteries (which I still have and still fire up the calulators!).

On a seperate note I remember when all the staff at my HP office were offered the chance to buy HP-01's at the end of their life. Special price was $150 each I think and you could order 1 gold and 1 silver at this price (to clear the old stock). I couldnt afford the price at the time (1979 or 1980??) so didnt bother, now THAT was a mistake I now regret!

Andy

[David Smith]

They show up fairly regularly on Ebay (mayby one a month). For some strange reason, they don't usually fetch a whole lot above normal machines (mayby 30-50% at best). I actually bought my 32S and 14B for a tad less than what regular machines were going for at the time (but well within normal Ebay price variations).

[Katie]

They do seem to be pretty easy to find. I can't belive that they were only available to HP employees, they must have gotten out to the general public somehow. What seems much, much harder to find is the 100th aniversery edition of the 28S. I'm still looking for one....

[Todd G]

Katie, you mean the 100th anniversary of the American Mathematical Association, and not the 100th anniversary of the 28S, right? ;-)

[Steve Borowsky]

I had an anniversary edition 28S. I believe it was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the AMS and was sold at the 1988 meeting of the NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics). It was used in fact to introduce the 28S to the teaching community and if I understand correctly only 1500 were made, based on comments made by Bill Wickes at a user group meeting. I do somewhat regret selling it, since owning something with a known limited production run can be somehow flattering, but i've always felt I collect HP calculators for the technology and the cultural context and I didn't want to be distratctred from that. BTW Katie, if you want to buy one, contact Tom Drewski ;-)

[David Smith]

The anniversary modeuls were also sold to HP stockholders.

[Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil)]

Hi;

I know ome people in here will not like it, but others will agree with me, so... Why not?

I have these itens with me (no particular aniversary model):

1 HP25 with everything but the carton case;
1 HP31 with manual, soft case and charger (batteries are not the original pack)
1 (recently given to me by a friend) HP55 with soft case, manual, charger and dead batt pack

I thought about trading them for other itens, newer, that would be somewhat more usefull. After deliberating with myself for a while, I decided I should keep them and, if I get rid of them, that should be for a very, very good reason. I do not consider money will pay for their services, just a good reason (say, one of our dear contributors in here need one of this pieces for some particular reason; I implicitly trust in all of them).

PLease, guys, we are a community. We should help each other in any situation. If a newcomer asks for some itnes value, we should consider that any of us was, at one point, a newcomer. Lets face it: whom of us would get rid of a celebrating model? I wouldn't. I always say I cannot think of a calculator inside a glass box to be seen. If so, only its external case is enough; it can be surely not working. If they are working, let's use them. Even if it is to confirm they are working, and programming. I am studying the HP55, how to build a program on it. I am almost sure I'll never develop a program to run on it, but I would like doing this.

So, I'd say: KEEP THEM! I would.

Just my quarter.