Shop OBEX P1 Docs P2 Docs Learn Events
World's Biggest Collection of Electronic Components? — Parallax Forums

World's Biggest Collection of Electronic Components?

Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
edited 2015-04-28 03:06 in General Discussion
Anyone here have a parts collection that matches this for size and order?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8nbHYOc8ns

Erco perhaps?

I pretty much have all my electronic parts in a couple of cardboard boxes. It's already impossible for me to find anything when I want it.

Comments

  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2015-04-26 03:41
    Judging from the age of the magazines, I'll bet there isn't a resistor smaller than 1/2W in the whole collection. And it probably contains a fair share of mica capacitors (those postage-stamp-shaped things with the colored dots), too -- all in pristine condition, of course!

    -Phil
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2015-04-26 03:50
    Looks like he spend his entire life sorting and boxing, leaving no time to use any of the components. :)
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2015-04-26 03:57
    Phil,
    ...all in pristine condition, of course!
    That's the weird part. Dave Jones said that pretty much all of the components in that collection are used. Desoldered from whatever they were in then neatly packed away. A serious lot of work.

    There is a rather wonderful collection of new vacuum tubes in there though.

    My father did a fair amount of that back in the 1970's when components were not so easily ordered and there were no component stores nearby.
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2015-04-26 04:09
    Heater. wrote: »

    There is a rather wonderful collection of new vacuum tubes in there though.

    I figured that collection of tube would give you a "warm" feeling. :)
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2015-04-26 05:31
    Pass it on, of course. I believe the mantra of every HAM radio swap meet goes something like this...

    "Sold!!!! It is better off in your garage than mine."

    Clutter and collections reach a critical mass where one has to choose. It is either the wife (or girl friend) or the hobby. If you dump the wife (or girl friend), the next event is the estate sale.

    At least your dog or cat accepts your hobby.
  • CuriousOneCuriousOne Posts: 931
    edited 2015-04-26 06:50
    It was on discovery or NGC, don't remember, there's a private company, which bought ex soviet military base in czech republic, and they're doing custom mods of military technics - like installing leather seats, led lighting, mini bar, etc :) they've showed us their spares warehouse they collect from all over the wolrd. The electronics part store was average football field size.
  • Keith YoungKeith Young Posts: 569
    edited 2015-04-26 09:28
    Looks like it all sold for $405 on eBay. The description of the video seemed to say so.

    Pure robbery.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2015-04-26 09:41
    Keith,

    Who robbed whom here? And why, in your opinion?
  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
    edited 2015-04-26 09:59
    Seconded. Things are worth what people will pay for them.

    In this scenario, just listing may not have shown value optimally. More could have been done, and a reserve may well have attracted different buyers.

    An auction without positioning the item value, and some promotion to do same may well yield low. Happens all the time.

    This is why people will attend. Lots of opportunity, particularly where a buyer knows something others don't.

    That is just how those kinds of markets work.

    One can also make the argument investing that time in positioning and promoting also costs and just moving whatever it is may be worth it too.

    Seems the latter applies here.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2015-04-26 11:01
    Looks like it all sold for $405 on eBay. The description of the video seemed to say so.

    Pure robbery.

    On the other hand, if the owners hadn't found a ready buyer willing to quickly haul away the lot they might have had to pay to have it all disposed of as toxic waste... lots of lead, a bit of mercury, etc.

    Sounds like this was an estate sale or dear old dad had a stroke and was moved into a rest home.. so the family wanted to clear it all out quickly.

    When you have a huge pile of desoldered used electronic components, point of view may suddenly shift unfavorably.
  • WhitWhit Posts: 4,191
    edited 2015-04-26 13:18
    Thank Heater! Amazing - I would have bought it in an instant!
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    edited 2015-04-26 14:07
    Wow! Those component drawers alone would have been worth a pretty penny.
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    edited 2015-04-26 14:18
    It's crazy that it sold for $405, everything else seems completely normal.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2015-04-26 14:30
    Those component drawers were take away food boxes. Not much value there I suspect.

    I'm kind of guessing all those new tubes could have fetched a lot more sold separately.

    That mercury switch thing is worth a few dollars as an antique curio.

    And all those scope tubes, wow!
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    edited 2015-04-26 14:35
    Heater. wrote: »
    Those component drawers were take away food boxes. Not much value there I suspect.

    I'm kind of guessing all those new tubes could have fetched a lot more sold separately.

    That mercury switch thing is worth a few dollars as an antique curio.

    And all those scope tubes, wow!

    By, "and all this sold for $405 on ebay!" do they really mean the mercury switch thing, scopes and magazines?

    That's why I think it is crazy, it was probably local pickup only, I may have missed parts of the video.
  • Keith YoungKeith Young Posts: 569
    edited 2015-04-26 18:36
    Well don't get me wrong, I'm far from being a leftist. It was an expression. I'd have thrown $406 at them in a heartbeat. I'm all for voluntary exchange. In all forms - period. Not sure how you took this from that. "Who robbed who?" "It's worth what people pay." By robbery, I was saying the price was super super cheap and I'd have happily bid higher if I'd known of the sale.

    Was I using the take me literally font?

    *Que the questions about if I actually think there is a literal font

    Yeah if it was local pickup, I might have had an issue with that requirement. Still, wow. Just reminds me of stories of some old lady selling a rusted out gem of a car in a barn for pennies on the dollar.

    I pay more than that for car insurance and health insurance I don't even want.
  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
    edited 2015-04-26 19:40
    By robbery, I was saying the price was super super cheap and I'd have happily bid higher if I'd known of the sale.

    Oh, totally. It's a screaming deal.

    You know how text is... happens. :)
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2015-04-26 21:21
    When my day comes, I pity whoever ends up disposing of my garage full of accumulated electronic goodies. I can well understand how a person in that position would be happy to take anything -- ANYTHING -- just to get the stuff out of their hair, especially if they don't know what half of it is.

    -Phil
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2015-04-26 22:56
    Keith,

    I did not mean to imply any leftistism with my question. I was honestly wondering if you thought the price was too low for such a treasure trove or too high for such a pile of useless junk.

    400 dollars does seem low to me. I would pay that for just the tube collection, or the scope collection etc.

    But not many people can deal with the whole caboodle. You need the transport, the storage space, the time, to handle it all. So low does not surprise me.
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    edited 2015-04-26 23:37
    I meant the Jiffy Drawers, not the chinese containers, are worth a fortune.
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2015-04-27 04:32
    What's special about that collection isn't really the size of it, it's that every item was put in boxes AND plastic bags, and labelled and catalogued. That's the most difficult part.. I have all my parts thrown together in random bags in a number of Parallax shipping cardboard boxes and the occasional useful Ebay box.. it would be more time consuming to find a 74HC159 IC in my tiny collection than in that big collection.
    So it seems to me that it could have been set up as an Ebay store and everything could have been sold nearly item by item.

    -Tor
  • Keith YoungKeith Young Posts: 569
    edited 2015-04-27 07:31
    Mine's about the same Tor, except I did sort some items such as resistors and capacitors in Plano tackle boxes. Most of my stuff is in Parallax or similarly sized Amazon boxes.

    I did visit a hackerspace here in the Detroit area, and I'd say they have 1/10 to 1/5 of that guys collection, and it was pretty well organized. I didn't know alligator clip wires could be anything but an impossibly tangled slinky like mess. Learn something new every day.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2015-04-28 03:06
    Tor wrote: »
    What's special about that collection isn't really the size of it, it's that every item was put in boxes AND plastic bags, and labelled and catalogued. That's the most difficult part.. I have all my parts thrown together in random bags in a number of Parallax shipping cardboard boxes and the occasional useful Ebay box.. it would be more time consuming to find a 74HC159 IC in my tiny collection than in that big collection.
    So it seems to me that it could have been set up as an Ebay store and everything could have been sold nearly item by item.

    -Tor

    I get the impression that the original collector did not sort through, bin, and label everthing in a nice, new clean box with a clear label. Just consider how we all accumulate parts. It doesn't occur that way. This is too consistent, too methodical.

    It appears that the original collector had someone come in and re-organize all and everything as an act of love -- maybe his kids because he was getting too old to easily manage things.

    I use food bins, but in successive clean-ups I ended up with different brands and sizes. Mostly I use plastic zip-lock bags as I can remove the air and get a lot more parts stored away in a shoe box. Bins and cans have a tendency to include a lot of empty air space.. so your storage space gets huge.

    ++++++
    I do dream up storage schemes and envision one day having a bar coding label on each and every bag so that I can monitor running low on components.

    It is a nice dream. I have other nice dreams too.... But then a brainwave upsets them and I jump into something else.

    ++++++
    Yes, it would be easy to set up as an EBay store, or just to open shop in a vacant Radio Shack location. Buying electronic inventories often end up in a huge mess, but this one is extremely tidy.

    The true value might just be the inventory system it provides for a retail shop, not the actual components. The next step would be to simply set up a computerized inventory database with a bar code scanner and a bar code label printer.
Sign In or Register to comment.