It's getting bad...

[N2IXK]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

I call them the Funny Cookie Corporation...

Kind of became "Federal Culture Control" once they started the inevitable "mission creep" from enforcing technical standards into dictating "acceptable content" (see FCC v. Pacifica Foundation).

[jshtulman1]

Yes, what's happening to the vintage television market is disheartening to say the least. However, I tend to believe there's a bright side to unfortunate events. For example, now that vintage televisions have become devalued, my minimum wage 16 year old teen salary is more capable of supporting this rather expensive hobby. Now the hardest part is convincing my parents that a CTC-7 is just as valuable to store in the garage than an exercise machine! My father is quite supportive, but my mother refers to my room as "the junkyard", and was pretty PO'd when I stuck that oriental style '59 RCA in there last week. RadioTvPhonoNut (If I'm spelling that correctly), you'll be glad to know that the hobby is far from dead amongst young people, and nobody had any qualms about watching game 7 on my Admiral 19A1 7" electrostatic deflection set. My friends even said that the action was more intense! Of course, by fourth quarter, we had switched to the junk 700 inch LCD in my living room with 4 million k resolution and a remote more complex to operate than a Remington Rand computer. About as reliable too. I also love to watch your youtube videos, so keep going at it!

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by jshtulman1

Of course, by fourth quarter, we had switched to the junk 700 inch LCD in my living room with 4 million k resolution and a remote more complex to operate than a Remington Rand computer. About as reliable too.

Yet another reason to love my 5 dollar, 7-button Space Command, even though I haven't yet acquired a set to use it on.

[jshtulman1]

Bingo. To take it a step further, how about that two button Silvertone "Selectra" remote? It has On/Off, a volume stepper, and channel selector. That's all you need!

[Jon A.]

I do have a 2-button, 1962 Motorola clicker, no battery needed. Sweet. However, I do prefer to be able to turn a set off without having to jack the volume first.

[jshtulman1]

Eh, having to deal with a brief period of moderately loud volume is something I'm willing to trade for my four, that's right, four remotes that have to be used in order to operate my families "entertainment center".

[Jon A.]

"The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain".

Scotty (James Doohan) in Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock.

That Silvertone remote is a nice catch though, especially when packaged with the TV. The remote that was on eBay last month wasn't nearly as nice as yours, yet it went for $15.95.

[jshtulman1]

Another proof of the times:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lgb...879952386.html

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by jshtulman1

Another proof of the times:

I don't think anyone would give him that many pennies, much less dollars...

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by jshtulman1

Eh, having to deal with a brief period of moderately loud volume is something I'm willing to trade for my four, that's right, four remotes that have to be used in order to operate my families "entertainment center".

My preference is the same there. Better to have a remote control than mission control.

[technicolor]

I'm a little late to this party, but i will throw in my two cents.

Back in the 90's with computers and computer hardware, you couldn't keeep anything in stock. The gold rush was the windows 95 internet era, roughly 95-98. Anything, and i do mean anything with a modem in it, would be out the door in five seconds. And i had some good chinese and california connections. You couldn't keep systems and parts in stock. This was the infancy of ebay. With my connections, the chinese had flooded the market with motherboards. 486, socket 7 pentium and of course the early intel "server board, socket 8 or pentium pro. Due to the price of the chip, socket 8 boards could be bought new in bulk pack for $8. Yes, $8. The se would FLY off ebay for $35. I'm talking 75-100 a week. Socket 7 boards, you could double your money on ($20 cost)

This was a time when on the ebay US site, only 500 auctions were listed in the motherboard category. enormous demand was not being met, anything computer flew off the shelves on ebay. The post office started sending me out to the loading dock.

This was largely the transition from DOS screens to windows 3.1 to the early net. The internet was white hot. On systems, you could make anywhere from $50-150 gross profit on a machine u may have had 20 minutes of time with.

The funny part, or not so funny part depending on how u look at it were those finacial rapists at aol. They had oversold capacity on the jersey shore to the extent that when you called your local dial up number, u couldn't get in. Busy signal. I remember an obnoxious secretary we had in our department who had been on AOL back when those thieves charged an hourly rate.

Then, prices on new systems started to drop, $2000, then 1500, then 1200, then 900 and so on. Many years later after i had gotten out, i checked ebay and saw 50,000+ auctions for motherboards. Many, many sellers were buying from my connections, selling the item for cost or less, and then overcharging on shipping.

Back door discontinued slightly out of date items at huge discounts could not be found. Became impossible to find a deal u could make any money on.

The irony of all of this, is vintage hardware went up in value. Stuff u couldn't give away back then, went up in value. At one point, very early on, i had bought maybe 200 very early NEW 386sx16 motherboards for i think $1.50 each. Today on ebay, i bet they would sell for $45-50 each. I think the early computer parts and systems have already become the roundies of computer hardware.

Vendors of every type went under. Those strip mall computer stores, all gone. I guess the same as tv repair places and mom and pop video rentals.

Me, i stumbled onto something else.