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Seeking a keypunch and discussion

A

Alsilisk

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2020
Messages
57
Location
South England
hello all,

I was just wondering if anyone wanted to shift a keypunch in the UK area. I am expecting an 029 if anything as 129s are rare and 026s are less rare but still not all too common. I don't mind either way. If you want to sell yours PM me.

Another note of discussion. What did happen to all the keypunches? At an installation there were usually around 2-3 and at larger ones with a punching-pool you could have 20+ were they all scrapped? What of value was there to scrap in them? I can understand why 129s are really thin on the ground as that was at the very end of the card-era and an installation would maybe have one or 2. But 029s were made in their droves. Can anyone shed some light on the card-era and what number of machines you would have at specific times?

Thanks for reading,

Al
 
Where I am, keypunches were retired and scrapped more than 30 years ago. I am sure that had anyone volunteered to take one home, the offer would have been happily accepted. Hauling away something as big as a keypunch is expensive. I snagged a punch card reader for free but that is a lot smaller and I had cards that needed reading.

I hope you manage to find one. Check with universities. Those had a bad habit of placing older hardware into storage and then forgetting about the hardware.
 
Scrapped mostly. But they're still around. MEI, I recall, bought up off-lease 026s and refurbed them.

The problem is that most all unit-record gear as well as IBM mainframes were leased. IBM didn't much care for keeping the old stuff around, so destroyed most of it. CDC wasn't much better, in my own experience. After a 6400 was built from parts and a service contract was obtained on it, Bill Norris said, in essence, "no more selling intact part to the surplus and scrap market--all items are to be rendered unsalvageable." Yes, that even involved putting sledgehammers to perfectly functional equipment.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Scrapped mostly. But they're still around. MEI, I recall, bought up off-lease 026s and refurbed them.

The problem is that most all unit-record gear as well as IBM mainframes were leased. IBM didn't much care for keeping the old stuff around, so destroyed most of it. CDC wasn't much better, in my own experience. After a 6400 was built from parts and a service contract was obtained on it, Bill Norris said, in essence, "no more selling intact part to the surplus and scrap market--all items are to be rendered unsalvageable." Yes, that even involved putting sledgehammers to perfectly functional equipment.
Click to expand...

I once saw some ex Navy UHF radio receivers, very vintage tech, with 6Cw4 Nuvistor tubes in them, really beautifully made. They were tossed out in the late 1970's as they were obsoleted by new transistorized gear. They couldn't have possibly contained any new secret tech, all very old school. Would have been a great asset to hobbyists and experimenters. But each one of these darling little radios had been crushed with a large hammer. So there are lots of reasons it would seem that decommissioned equipment gets destroyed and in most cases I think it serves no useful purpose. In this case it was attributed to "Military Intelligence".

Perhaps with one exception, used aircraft parts. I saw a classic a while back where a helicopter main rotor was discarded, it was "destroyed" by drilling multiple large holes in it and sent to the dump. Somebody found it, filled the holes with plastic filler and put a beautiful coat of black paint on it. It got sold and fitted to a chopper. The chopper lifted a car out of bushland, and luckily it didn't break. Just goes to show how forces get distributed around the perimeter of a hole, it was a lucky escape for the pilot.
 
thanks for the link fat but there are a few problems with that listing,

one that is too expensive by a long shot, I may not own a keypunch but I know how much one is worth. Two its in Barcelona.
 
Alsilisk said:
thanks for the link fat but there are a few problems with that listing,

one that is too expensive by a long shot, I may not own a keypunch but I know how much one is worth. Two its in Barcelona.
Click to expand...

Do you really know what an 029 is worth? The hand puches go for £200 or so when they pop up so I would say you need to pop a "0" on the end for an 029.
If its Barcelona, so really its on ebay.es perhaps?

https://www.ebay.es/itm/IBM-29-Computer-Mainframe-Card-Punch-Vintage/264567682926

Its been there a while so obviously not worth what is been asked. However do you really know the value?
I guess the list would be a reasonable price for one in working order, but as spares/repairs?

There is also one on E-Bay US, at a lower price, better condition again with an optimistic vendor.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-IBM-029-keypunch-machine-IBM-29-mid-1960s/333725407026

Try "Hacer Oferta" and see what pops up. Or send a message pointing out you could get the one from the states shipped for the price difference and point out its in better condition.
Google Translate will let you write in Spanish, but the description seems good english
 
hi Dave,

as much I find it annoying I might try to wrangle him down in that case. however it has sat there for ages and he has not reduced the price. I fear he might be on the more bone-headed side. Money is quite tight right now as well and I have another thing happening so I will see if I have enough after to try and wrangle him down.

I do know the price. Technically Nothing. Something is worth only as much as people are willing to pay also these machines are a bastard to ship from what I have heard. £1000-1500 is what I consider reasonable so the US one is on the upper edge of that bound (I have seen them sell for this much but not much more). For the Spanish one I wouldn't pay more than £1250. Even if my other deal goes through to my side I couldn't afford more than that including shipping it.

(I have bought from that seller in the US before and he gets his prices pretty much dead on all the time)
 
Chuck(G) said:
Scrapped mostly. But they're still around. MEI, I recall, bought up off-lease 026s and refurbed them.

The problem is that most all unit-record gear as well as IBM mainframes were leased. IBM didn't much care for keeping the old stuff around, so destroyed most of it. CDC wasn't much better, in my own experience. After a 6400 was built from parts and a service contract was obtained on it, Bill Norris said, in essence, "no more selling intact part to the surplus and scrap market--all items are to be rendered unsalvageable." Yes, that even involved putting sledgehammers to perfectly functional equipment.
Click to expand...

I don't recall where it was but it was in driving distance from San Luis Obispo. There was a scrap yard where old IBM machines were run over by a tractor to render them as scrap material. I recall digging through the stuff and found a core frame that wasn't in to bad of shape. I never did anything with it and now it is lost to the ages. I can understand IBM's intent but a lot of history was lost.
Dwight
 
The trick was if you like to scrounge radio parts back in the day, was to keep an eye on "Class B270" parts that were put aside by the local Supply Department at a Naval Station or Naval Air Station. If you participated in the stations MARS (wireless) network, while om active duty, you could snag just about anything and if your were clever enough, even get some goodies for yourself, legally. Periodically, surplus "demilitarized" equipment was put up for bid. Sometimes it was just a matter of removing a few name tags and seldom did the disposal folks put the hammer to anything unless directed by higher authority. I retired from the Navy in 1977 so things may have changed a bit.
 
I can recall seeing more Univac 1701 keypunch keyboards on the surplus market than the keypunches themselves. Nice unit--more advanced than the 029s.
 
Alsilisk said:
hi Dave,

as much I find it annoying I might try to wrangle him down in that case. however it has sat there for ages and he has not reduced the price. I fear he might be on the more bone-headed side. Money is quite tight right now as well and I have another thing happening so I will see if I have enough after to try and wrangle him down.

I do know the price. Technically Nothing. Something is worth only as much as people are willing to pay also these machines are a bastard to ship from what I have heard. £1000-1500 is what I consider reasonable so the US one is on the upper edge of that bound (I have seen them sell for this much but not much more). For the Spanish one I wouldn't pay more than £1250. Even if my other deal goes through to my side I couldn't afford more than that including shipping it.

(I have bought from that seller in the US before and he gets his prices pretty much dead on all the time)
Click to expand...

Aren't there so many on the "bone headed" side! I agree that "value" its what some one will pay, and I think the best way to find that is an auction. You need to make people fight for things.

I think when sticking things on with a high starting value you are on a hiding to nothing. Best you can hope is some one will buy it and re-list it saying "look what the last one sold for".

However I would have thought multiple people would pay around £1000. Given the state it is in I am not sure that that wouldn't still be "over priced". Spares are hard to get and expensive. I think I might start at €500.

Reminds me of the "lady" who was trying to get a similar price for a Series/1 but could not accept that it had no intrinsic value other than scrap. She listed it on E-bay , Facebook Market Place and finally in a private auction. As far as I know she still has it!.
 
The barcelona one sent me a offer for 1000 Euro less than listed price. A bit too high for me but still tempting considering I am very impatient when I want something but will need to add a heap for shipping.

Agreed to previous comment start auction at normal prices it will sell then
 
Back in the late eighties when I was working up in Philadelphia I would often go to a company called TMET or something like that up in north Philadelphia and they were an electronics recycler. They sold a ton of old DEC LA-36 serial printers for people to use back with the old first apple 2 and S-100 series computers. One part of the operation broke down systems for metal recovery and they had several brand new IBM-360 systems they were rendering at the time. I once bought a PDP-8 with expansion chassis with an additional 4 k of ram for $200 there. They closed in the early nineties and Fred who did all the sales opened up another surplus operation further north up around Roxboro, Think Fred last name was Chassis and would assume he is not around any more.
He also sold small used components and fittings at all the Ham Fest around the North East.
I have come across similar surplus operations later in Washington but the issue is those places don’t seem to last too long and they are gone.
Think at the end of the day is just to keep looking, things turn up. Sometimes for cheap sometimes you have to pay more, others you find people just want to get rid of things. The trick is to first have the space for all the stuff, second is to be able to afford it and third is to live long enough.
Man there will be one hell of an estate sale for me, vintage computers, radios, vehicles and tons of other stuff.
 
g4ugm said:
Aren't there so many on the "bone headed" side! I agree that "value" its what some one will pay, and I think the best way to find that is an auction. You need to make people fight for things.

I think when sticking things on with a high starting value you are on a hiding to nothing. Best you can hope is some one will buy it and re-list it saying "look what the last one sold for".

However I would have thought multiple people would pay around £1000. Given the state it is in I am not sure that that wouldn't still be "over priced". Spares are hard to get and expensive. I think I might start at €500.

Reminds me of the "lady" who was trying to get a similar price for a Series/1 but could not accept that it had no intrinsic value other than scrap. She listed it on E-bay , Facebook Market Place and finally in a private auction. As far as I know she still has it!.
Click to expand...

In the used/vintage car market, these people are referred to with the commonly found phrase 'I know what I got'. The problem with our hobby is that most people have absolutely no frame of reference for the value of anything, so to anyone unfamiliar with the existence of people like us, it's either 'nobody wants this old garbage, scrap it' or 'someone will pay me a real mint for this' and few and far between.

That being said, people who sell items like these and ask big money are usually trying to sell to companies in need of legacy replacements. The american seller seems at least to understand that there is a hobbyist community out there but is hedging between selling it for the big money on the random chance that there's some company that needs to actually needs a keypunch in 2020 and trying to set it up for an auction among enthusiasts. For equipment like this, with such a tiny market of interested enthusiasts, you'd need a specialized auction for it that could try to advertise it in all of the communities, and even then it's always a matter of timing. Now is definitely not a good time for anyone.
 
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