For 8 years (1990- 1998) I bought all the latest gadgets for the 68XXX series of Apple Macintosh computers.
I was checking prices in recent times to see what this stuff is now worth.

There has always been demand for the rare computer gear....like the only card in the world (a RastopOps 264 colorboard) that converted the little black and white SE/30 compact Mac into a 24 bit colour machine. That card alone cost nearly as much as the computer when it was released. I have one which I acquired in 1995 when they were much cheaper to get hold of and it is still fully functional even after 23 years!

Then there are the clever little video adaptors (no longer made) that allowed old Macs to use newer multi-scan monitors.
Not to mention the Apple Imagewriter II printer that was so well built it will outlive us all!
Perhaps you always wanted a genuine carry bag for the original Compact series Macintosh?
I've a tonne of equipment - virtually all of it as new and still working.

Another thing I have spent my whole life collecting is music. There have been numerous threads and discussions about the demise of physical formats.
When this finally does happen it will be a sad day for me personally however I think it will kickstart the collector market like you have never seen before.
CDs which are as common as mud currently could suddenly be looked upon as the pinnacle of perfection and the ultimate format to have owned given none of the digital formats have been able to surpass them in terms of quality. I think CD-singles which have all but died in recent years could also be highly collectible if they have been preserved in mint condition, with all of the original packaging etc. Many were totally unique and only available for a very a short period of time. I collected them exhaustively for many years.

I also think that the tiny production runs for some recent limited edition CDs and DVDs is creating almost overnight collectibles. Many artists are selling numbered copies available exclusively from their websites. These are produced in such small quantities that they sell out almost immediately and this fuels the collector market for anyone who missed buying a copy. I've seen CDs that sold on the artist site for £20 sell for £300 on Ebay within 4 weeks of deletion recently.

High quality retro audio equipment like top of the range cassette walkmans, 3 head cassette decks , reel to reel recorders and turntables also seem to be highly collectible today still. A friend of mine in the US was selling his treasured Pioneer Elite CD recorder that he bought 17 years ago. Despite the fact you cannot even buy the correct media to use in it anymore (it requires a special type of disc) he sold a unit recently for almost $1000 USD.

I also have all my childhood toys - many clockwork games (yes I'm that old) in their original boxes etc. Many seem to be fetching good prices on places like Ebay.

So is this stuff becoming collectible now that 20+ years have now elapsed or am I deluding myself?

I think you hit the nail on the head
My hope is that the next big collectable will be old worn out service technicians I'm almost there, wonder what I'd fetch on eBay?

I have a Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh. It has the Bose integrated sound system. It's all complete with boxes. Kind of has the Bang and Olufsen style to it. It makes a very nice sound system with it's vertical CD player. The Bose speakers and amp are based on the Lifestyle 20 system, which was pretty expensive back in the day. Plus running OS 9.1 you get iTunes 2 so you can load up all your music.












I don't think I want to collect any more Macs though, the older ones take up a lot of space. I've got a Power Book Wallstreet and an iMac G3, that's as old as they get around here. The TAM is my favorite. They were initially priced at 7500.00 in 1997.

I have a website for it at 20thanniversarymac.com I need to update it, I haven't done much with the site in over a year. First personal computer with a built in LCD, best sound system for Mac even until today. Lots of other neat things about it.

I think anyone like yourself who has the skills to repair laserdisc players has a very rosy future ahead. It is clear the format is really popular still so there will be demand for a long time to come from collectors to keep their machines ticking along. They will pay whatever it takes. I think there is also a gap in the market currently for repair skills in Europe which is just waiting for someone to fill. Fancy relocating to sunny UK?

Who knows? I have second cousins in Scotland
But ALL my test equipment is 110 volt. Guess I'd need a truckload of stepdown transformers

The original macs with the original teams signatures in it that has been upgraded to a better mac,

OS 3.2 would be as good as it gets with those, and there's not a whole lot you can do on it now. Unless you rip the guts out and put new into it. But that kind of devalues it. Of course the most collectable in terms of value would be the Apple 1 and II, original Lisa, good luck getting one of those now. The Lisa II is worth quite a bit too. There's a few other odds and ends to Apple stuff. I think I'll just stick with 1 old computer that's collectable. They're hard to keep up and find parts for.

I've been tossing the idea around that they're won't be any new CD's made soon, at least in large pressings and don't know what to think. The quality that you get in a download is a fraction of the CD. But then I try to remember the last time I played something from the CD...Well there was that time a few weeks back in the car, with a CD-R. So ask yourself that question too, maybe this is the wrong crowd since we still play defunct formats. I guess I usually just play my music CD's on the stereo via computer because it's easier, I have it on CD, most of it anyway from what I haven't borrowed from friends or family.

The advancement in technology is also to blame. Why play your favorite music on that huge CD player when you can play it on your laptop or phone? I was watching Pawn Stars and someone hauled in one of those old car diagnostic machines and they said "Haven't these been replaced with a laptop?" and the other guy says, "No, I think they've been replace by a phone." It's pretty much like that with every piece of old tech from the past. Walkmans or boomboxes > phones and ipods. Pinball and arcade machines > 360's, PS3's, DSI's and apps for your phone. Apple stopped putting optical drives in their machines last year with the Mac mini and now the Mac Book Pro and rumor is the iMac and Mac Pro are next. If you want your content via laser, they're not making it easy for you. It really might come down to how much space one has to store all that old junk and that's where digital storage comes in.

As far as quality goes, they say your ear can't tell the difference between 256kb/s and 320kb/s, if there is a big difference it's not much. And even harder to distinguish between 320kb/s and 1.3 mb on the CD. I found a comparison because I wanted to know if I could tell. The test is at the end here which I found online. Go to that link and try it out.

If you can't hear the difference that's incredible, compress the crap out of it and price the hell out of it. Capitalism at its best. Actually I find it more incredible that back in the early 80's they had better audio quality than what is going to become the next standard format for music. Of course Laserdisc was right there too in the early days with digital audio. The way I look at it, when I buy something, I want it on something physical, whether it's music, movies, games, whatever. I want it on disc I don't care what, LD, CD, DVD, HD DVD, BD, PS3 games, as long as it's optical. As for playing it back, it depends, with music I want to be the one compressing it and the same with movies, that way it gets done right. But it's nice to know that I have it in its highest quality sitting on a shelf if I ever need it.

Here's an audio Test. This is actually 128k vs 320k so you should be able to hear a big difference. Let me know if you got it right, and be honest! I got it right the first time. But I'll admit it was a tough one! Of course I was just listening on my laptop.

I rip all of my stuff at 320. Storage is cheap enough and the base at 128 drives me up a wall.

I did the test listening to each clip twice and guessed the correct answer and I was only listening through the built in speakers in a laptop!
I've listened to so many laserdiscs I just know what to expect in terms of better audio quality. In fact as a music lover it is the very first thing I picked up on when I started buying laserdiscs - they just sound so much better than DVDs or VHS.

There is a whole generation below us who only know about convenience and have never actually heard high quality audio so couldn't tell the difference.
That is one of the reasons why so many DVD re-issues are so hastily produced because the bulk of the public don't care about quality (either video or audio) these days.
It is all just about fitting it in a device the size of a matchbox so you can take it anywhere regardless of quality and selling it by the truckload dirt cheap.

I mean look at how many people bought Apple iPods - it seems the whole world has one now. I wonder have even 1% of those same people actually done a comparison with other brands in terms of audio quality or were they basing their decision purely on brand name? If they did they would surely conclude (as I did) that the iPod sounds awful. If you want the best sounding audio portable device buy a Sony walkman. If you want a jack of all trades master of none buy an iPod.

In fact if you really want to hear an improvement in audio quality listen to a vinyl LP pressing of your favourite artist and compare with the latest CD.
I frequently find I can still hear lots of extra detail on the LP that is simply missing from the CD - even the remastered edition. We have all been conned!!

I think the future looks bright for all sorts of collectibles as discerning listeners and viewers revisit obsolete formats and older technology and discover that things were not only built better years ago but they could also sound and look better as well.

Its all in the base!

It helps to have better speakers, it's hard to tell on laptop. The speakers in these laptops cut out all the dynamic range good speakers/amps/receivers can put out and that's when you can hear the difference. But there is a big difference in 128 and 320, I don't think anyone encodes at 128k accept streaming music. I think I have most of my collection at 256 AAC. I'm not certain I could tell between 256 and 320 even on my stereo system. I'd have to run some tests and see, I've thought about re ripping everything, or maybe just the stuff I listen to the most at 320. I don't have any vinyls. When I was young my parents had some but I never liked dropping the needle and hearing it scratch and the static noise in the background all the time drives me crazy.

yeph.

i love the "digitally remastered from the original analog tapes to analog record"

if i wanted digital i would buy the CD, if i want analog i will buy the record, but what do i pick
if i want analog but it was digitally enhanced and then put on vinyl?

it's all a scam, i do have to admit i did buy one of the "new" 180 gram digitally remasterd LPs.
so i'll see what it's like, but i really wanted the cover in a larger format than the CD.

You know I bought a recent Arabesque DVD on Ebay and I am almost positive it has just been ripped off the old Japanese VHD:

Arabesque: Greatest Hits [VHM58015]

It was rather dodgy quality in places and the track listing was absolutely identical to the original VHD which I also own.

I bet if I could play the original VHD it would play better than this 'new' DVD.

Talk about paying money for old rope!!

I bought a handful of the 180 gram LPs as well just to compare with both the original LP pressings and the CD remasters.
They have a nice weight about them, particularly the gatefold editions that feels almost like a laserdisc so fits in nicely with my existing collection.
Everyone thinks my laserdiscs are vinyl anyway!

i bought a garrard lab 80 mkII last year, just finished getting it almost upto top playing condition.
need a new rubber wheel for more grip to spin the turntable, but once it gets started i don't have to worry.

anyway i received a new needle for the cartridge yesterday, so i have to make sure the weight is correct
and then see if i start another collection .

i have the same issue, when people come over they think i have LPs since we are in Nashville and
that's what people collect here, but i tell them; no they are LDs, the say, oh cool.
but i highly doubt they know what i'm talking about most of the time.

I still collect and buy the vinyl record first, and then go for the CD if there is no vinyl release.
On the last Loreena Mckinnett album which got a vinyl release, (album mastered by Bob Ludwig) Here is what was said from a interview about vinyl quality.

"When Jeff mixed The Wind that Shakes the Bar- ley, he mixed it using high-resolution digital that’s twice the resolution normally used. That means the digital master would be sampling the sound it was going to digitize at 88,200 samples of sound per second, as opposed to the
CD’s 44,100 per second.

“That recording is later reduced in its resolution in order to fit on a compact disc and for downloads it’s reduced even more – significantly more.”
(While the quality of digital downloads varies re- tailer to retailer, the two available through Quinlan Road are very high-quality. Most outside down- loads are either 128Kbps or 192Kbps. In contrast, the QR Shop downloads are either 256Kbps down- loads, or FLAC files, which stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, and they retain as much quality as the CD.)
And then there is vinyl.
For the first time since 1994, Loreena’s latest re- cording is also available on vinyl. The Wind that Shakes the Barley is being offered as high-quality,180-gram vinyl in a numbered, limited edition run of 5,000, and these are anticipated to become col- lectors’ items.

“There’s definitely a resurgence in demand for vinyl,” acknowledges Bob. “It’s from all ages really, but there’s a huge demographic that grew up with vinyl that definitely misses the warm sound it can give you on a good playback system.”

And while CDs and downloads have reduced resolutions, vinyl can reproduce some aspects of the music best of all because it’s mastered from the full- range, high-resolution digital master, not a digital- ly-reduced CD. “Vinyl gives you a wonderful warm sound and compared to a CD, even played on a good system, the sound of Lorenna’s vinyl is slightly wider because it comes from a better source,” ex- plains Bob, adding that vinyl is also able to capture an entire octave of high frequencies that CDs can’t"

So if the download even is best quality if it's missing a octave, it just won't sound the same in my opinion.

Funny, I go to remastered cd any day over vinyl. Only time I use vinyl is when there is absolutely no cd quality recording available and then I digitize it for sound replacement on matching video promo. Of course when I digitize I go for the best possible/reasonable sampling rate. I never listen to audio in compressed MP3, it's just plain awful. Take an LPCM track at 1411.2 kbps and there is no comparison to a 320 kbps track. Of course how the recording was made and from what source makes those numbers relevant.
Also I disagree that analog is superior over digital. There is no limit to the sampling rate in digital, can go on to infinity but the benefits of zero mechanical noise or interference in digital is far superior over analog. And obviously the benefit of space and mobility for digital is what will drive the market. We don't have to settle for crappy digital sound compressed. The skys the limit.

As far as keep sakes or collectibles and whether they are worth it to save. What would the value of the money be in a safe cd or treasury in comparison over time. There's your answer in whether it was worth it, also might need to discount the cost involved in selling/storing the hard assets. My take, not worth it. Just do it for your own pleasure and enjoy.

i agree, after getting the vinyl it sounded fine the first play, i still don't know if i really like vinyl or
will just have it around to have a complete setup.

but the second time around there were those pops and cracks, my needle is new and the record was new.
then i look at the disc and there is a scratch? i know 100% i didn't do that, and i didn't run the arm over the
record.

so i will just stick with CD unless i can't find it, which i don't think the case will be.

If someone had somehow managed to save an EV1 electric car from GM, I'd bet that would be a big collectible item in the future.