Last night I went along to an auction of 500 lots of computers.
Hoped to pick up maybe one or two cheap low-end Pentiums
for messing about with. The lots on offer ranged from 120MHz
to 600MHz PII machines. all either 1998 or 1999 models, with
2-3GB empty drives, CD and sound cards (no speakers). Some
of them were marked as faulty and non-starting. I thought the
bids would be around NZ$150 (US$65) to possibly NZ$750
(US$315). In total amazement I saw bids of NZ$2000 (US$840)
and really started to think "hey, am I missing something ?" But
no, these PCs were exactly as described in the catalogue. Even
obviously broken PCs with missing parts were getting premium
prices (which attract 10% premium + 12.5% tax), pieces of crap
even I would consider tossing in the bin. Compared to what was
on offer in the local second-hand paper (www.t&e.co.nz) and
even what could could be built up from new retail parts, I just
couldn't believe how high the bidding went. Anybody else seen
this ? I'm having trouble understanding why on earth antiquated
machinery that's had day-in-day-out use for 4 years would fetch
such prices

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