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Are you an Active Collector or a Passive one?

Are you an Active Collector or a Passive one?

  • I'm an Active Collector

    Votes: 33 84.6%

  • I'm a Passive Collector

    Votes: 6 15.4%
  • Total voters
    39
With that definition, I am not surprised that 90% of those who have voted claim to be active collectors. To only rely on what you bought 20, 30, 40 years ago would limit your choices a lot.

However I would rather call myself an idle collector, just like someone mentioned above if an item that I like is affordable, I may get it, but I am not daily scouting for new listings nor buying/trading for anything that tickles my interest irregardless of cost.
 
While my favorite vintage computers are those I have had since they are new, over the years I have also have been given quite a few items by their original owners (especially those that received upgrade parts from me as needed). Is that still passive behavior? I have bought a few parts when they are cheap, as well.
 
I'm certainly an active collector. I made a list when I started of and pretty much went after models on it. However I've ended up with a few computers that were not on the list. These were either donated of were just so cheap I couldn't say no.

Tez
 
Active. I'm too young to have held on to anything older than a 486 or Pentium 1 machine from when it was new (and I didn't because I was a kid back then and had no idea I'd miss those machines when they were gone).

EDIT: There are a couple of computers I actually did hold on to from when I was a kid, though, although they weren't 'new' then. One was a Tandy Color Computer 2. When I was a kid, I noticed my grandpa had two of those for some reason. I asked if I could have one. He said no, but if I paid him $10 I could buy it. So that's when I bought my first computer, haha. The other is a Compaq LTE 5200 laptop, although it has broken and been rebuilt a few times with parts from other broken LTE laptops, so it probably couldn't be considered the same computer anymore.
 
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Uniballer said:
While my favorite vintage computers are those I have had since they are new, over the years I have also have been given quite a few items by their original owners (especially those that received upgrade parts from me as needed). Is that still passive behavior? I have bought a few parts when they are cheap, as well.
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I have a Dell laptop that I restored and upgraded; one that was donated to me. That is definitely passive as well.

I actually considered becoming active, and buying an old Panasonic Sr. Partner, like the one I bought new in '84 -but sold in '88-. But then my passive mania kicked in, and I did nothing. :p
 
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I'd have to say I'm probably semi-active/passive.

I've got several machines I bought new and just hung onto. However, I also find interesting stuff at estate sales, garage sales, and fleabay and will pick them up.

However, since I retired I've started thinning my collection down to just a few "choice" items I really, REALLY like.
 
Active I would say. I'm continuously looking for new old stuff everywhere. I guess I'm nostalgia-driven; the home computer explosion happened when I was in my teens, but at the time I was too poor to have anything but a Sinclair ZX Spectrum clone; the IBM PC was happening at the same time but they were too expensive and I could only access one sporadically (when nobody else did). I could only afford my own PC about ten years later, during the transition from Pentium MMX to Pentium II. Now I'm actively trying to relive my youth by collecting/building those computers that were the forbidden fruit for me back then.
 
Forbidden fruit, that's a good term. For me that were the pricey Sun Sparc workstations on every desk next door in the software department, late '80s. In mechanical engineering we had to make do with their cast-offs from before they moved to UNIX, which happened to be outdated PC, XT and ATs.

So I've collected around 10 total of IBM and RISC machines, from employers, swap meets, friends and relatives, but mostly 20 years ago when it was easier to find pristine examples. The itch has been scratched and I not looking for any more, unless a stunning example came up - and here in NZ I'm more likely to win Lotto.

I've found now I get more out of this collection simply by keeping them on display where I can see them every day rather than storing them away for occasional reminiscing. Most are great examples of industrial design and deserve to be seen, just like old cars.
 

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I started out passive and have become active. It all started when I wanted my own computer. I couldn't afford a new one as a kid so i bought an old one, a Tandon XT. Then my quest was to find one that could run Windows 3.1. This lead me to acquiring many, many XT and 286's until I finally was given an IBM PS/2 model 55. This lead to semi-active collecting of PS/2. If someone wanted to give me and old computer i nearly always accepted it and still will. But i do actively seek specific systems and or parts. (mainly high-end PC's) I still have lots of stuff given to me years ago, but I try to get rid of stuff that's of no particular interest.

I don't know if anyone can relate to this, but, I often try to cut down my collection, which somehow leads to buying more stuff:) E.g. Well i could part with that DEC dual Pentium server, as I have another one, but I do want to have a standard AT dual Pentium board, so when i obtain that, I will get rid of that server. Oh but that one has a different chipset, well I better keep it. I think of it as a slow sort of creeping madness.
 
Yes, it's a hobby that can easily spiral out of control if your don't have other factors reining you in, like storage space or a spouse. I think having rules and a process of prioritizing machines and parts is helpful. If I feel organised I'm less likely to get into a panic and wonder if I will be featured on one those TV programs about hoarders.
 
paul said:
Yes, it's a hobby that can easily spiral out of control if your don't have other factors reining you in, like storage space or a spouse. I think having rules and a process of prioritizing machines and parts is helpful. If I feel organised I'm less likely to get into a panic and wonder if I will be featured on one those TV programs about hoarders.
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Being a passive collector, my collection grows at a snail's pace. Someone has to give me a PC. My last gift was a Dell Inspiron 1501 notebook with the Turion. I got busy and repaired some broken keys, upgraded everything, the hdd, the memory, the battery, and removed Win XP in favor of Ubuntu 12. (Dell's bloatware infested the XP installation, so it was so slow as to be unusable.) Now it sits, and I occasionally update the Ubuntu. :)
 
I'm going to introduce a new category of collecting, catch and release.

The more I think about it, the more I think I fit into that category.

If I find something anywhere, be it garage sale, ebay, craigslist, etc. and it looks interesting, I may pick it up. I'll play with it a while to get a feel for it and understand it better, do any repairs it might need, then will try to find it a new home if I'm not that interested in it.
 
paul said:
Yes, it's a hobby that can easily spiral out of control if your don't have other factors reining you in, like storage space or a spouse. I think having rules and a process of prioritizing machines and parts is helpful. If I feel organised I'm less likely to get into a panic and wonder if I will be featured on one those TV programs about hoarders.
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My rule is two rooms (well, off-site storage doesn't count, right?). The servers have one room and the desktops have the other. Other than a few things that popped up in other rooms for reasonable reasons, I've held to that rule and even turned down a few systems I really, really wanted.
 
I'm definitely an active collector. I wasn't even born in the 486 era (more like pentium 3-4) so I have to be on the lookout for these old machines. Also with regards to storage; yes, I constantly am nagged by my folks about "too many PC's". I have to keep the collection in check or else I have to throw away some or sell them.
 
paul said:
Yes, it's a hobby that can easily spiral out of control if your don't have other factors reining you in, like storage space or a spouse. I think having rules and a process of prioritizing machines and parts is helpful. If I feel organised I'm less likely to get into a panic and wonder if I will be featured on one those TV programs about hoarders.
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Hahaha. Yes, I agree Paul. Some of those hoarder episodes are rather alarming!
 
I voted for "active". Well if it's not about palmtop PCs or something with a monochrome screen then i rarely get active, but sometimes that might happen and then i can be active as a whirlwind.
 
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