Patrick.B (TTR)
Experienced Member
A good investment is if you buy something at price X and you sell it after considering; the cost of restoring, time spent troubleshooting, cleaning, testing, researching solutions, digging through forums for a possible answers to problems that keep stumping you for weeks or months, assembling the parts to make it as "period" or "updated" to give it new life. not limited but including to monitors, drives, software etc.
So X + "All that" = Y. If you can find someone to pay for Y, then your investment is good. if you sell it for less than Y then you made a bad investment.
Have I had a great investment, Yes, a 1985 TRS-80 model 4D, delivered to the collector *(and yes that is probably the only way to make an item become a good investment)* for a very good profit beyond "Y"
Have I had a bad investment, Yes, a 1984 TRS-80 model 4P, purchase price below market, but as mentioned by a few before me, once I achieved Y, it had become over market pricing,
In the end, selling it for a price X+few more bucks, to a young man that wanted to learn how to program on a vintage computer in assembly language.
Was it truly a bad investment? monetarily speaking, if I only think of hardware and parts cost, I lost a little, but gained a friend.
I have had regrets sure we all make that purchase that the moment you hit buy, your brains goes; "buddy put that beer down and step away from eBay", but in the end,
I seek the knowledge to restore, repair and return to functionality and at times improve the "old systems" for someone else that seeks to own or enjoy the past.
I pass on what I learned to newcomers that wish to "tinker" with a machine they got from a family member and discovered that computers existed before their android phone
So X + "All that" = Y. If you can find someone to pay for Y, then your investment is good. if you sell it for less than Y then you made a bad investment.
Have I had a great investment, Yes, a 1985 TRS-80 model 4D, delivered to the collector *(and yes that is probably the only way to make an item become a good investment)* for a very good profit beyond "Y"
Have I had a bad investment, Yes, a 1984 TRS-80 model 4P, purchase price below market, but as mentioned by a few before me, once I achieved Y, it had become over market pricing,
In the end, selling it for a price X+few more bucks, to a young man that wanted to learn how to program on a vintage computer in assembly language.
Was it truly a bad investment? monetarily speaking, if I only think of hardware and parts cost, I lost a little, but gained a friend.
I have had regrets sure we all make that purchase that the moment you hit buy, your brains goes; "buddy put that beer down and step away from eBay", but in the end,
I seek the knowledge to restore, repair and return to functionality and at times improve the "old systems" for someone else that seeks to own or enjoy the past.
I pass on what I learned to newcomers that wish to "tinker" with a machine they got from a family member and discovered that computers existed before their android phone