non-eBay magazine haul
Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 11:19 am
Hi all,
On a whim I stopped at a garage sale today (very unusual for me, haven't done 'the hunt' for at least a couple of years previously) and got chatting with the owner at the sale who had a few C64 boxed games in good condition in amongst the usual lot of 'junk'. I asked him if he had any old C64 magazines at all and he said he thought he had a few out in his workshop, so he leaves his wife running the sale and invites me down to have a quick look as he's also got more C64 games which might interest me.
Well, it turns out this guy was the owner of one of the major Commodore repair centres in the state and has a workshop full of C64 gear. He showed me three sets of chests of drawers, where in each drawer he said there were around a thousand 5.25" floppies (all originals, I saw them!) and he had boxes piled on top of each other, full of flattened original boxes and manuals. There was a living room sized area full of broken and repaired C64's, disk drives, tape drives, printers etc.etc. absolute tonnes of stuff. He had a quick dig around for magazines and we ended up 'unearthing' and filling 7 large boxes (the size that is used to pack fruit and vegetables) full of 1980-1990 magazines in average to very good condition.
A quick summary of my 'find':
-2x Games Computing
-approx. 12x Commodore Computing Internationals
-approx. 24x Your Commodore
-4x Commodore User - including issues 1 and 2!
-approx. 12x ZERO
-approx. 36x Your Computer (Australian general computing magazine)
-approx. 12x Australian Personal Computer
-approx. 24x Australian Commodore and Amiga Review (all early issues)
-approx. 12x Commodore Format
-approx. 18x Commodore World
-approx. 36x The Transactor
-misc. AHOY!, RUN! and Commodore Disk User magazines
-plus also what he claimed was every issue of Compute's Gazette, which with the exception of Volume 2, would appear to be pretty damn accurate (about 12-14 years worth of magazines).
Most of the mags are in quite good condition, but some of them are a little worn from being out in boxes, in a essentially a large shed for many, many years. After going through all of them my hands were very dirty and needed a good wash.
I was quite surprised at all of this and when we started talking price he starts off with "well I know what these are worth to the collector" (uh oh), "so how about $150 for the lot?" (about 60 GBP). So I agreed, and we loaded up the car.
When I got home I got in trouble for spending over my 'allowance' by my wife, but there's a heap of magazines (mainly the Gazettes and other USA magazines) which I don't collect, so they'll be going up on eBay to cover my going over budget this month (we're saving to move house).
Quite a nice haul by my accounts! Anyone else ever stumbled across a treasure trove like this? (there's an auction on ebay at the moment, a heap of old C64, Spectrum, Amiga etc. software from a computer store..)
How's about your finds and stories?
Cheers,
Gizmomelb
On a whim I stopped at a garage sale today (very unusual for me, haven't done 'the hunt' for at least a couple of years previously) and got chatting with the owner at the sale who had a few C64 boxed games in good condition in amongst the usual lot of 'junk'. I asked him if he had any old C64 magazines at all and he said he thought he had a few out in his workshop, so he leaves his wife running the sale and invites me down to have a quick look as he's also got more C64 games which might interest me.
Well, it turns out this guy was the owner of one of the major Commodore repair centres in the state and has a workshop full of C64 gear. He showed me three sets of chests of drawers, where in each drawer he said there were around a thousand 5.25" floppies (all originals, I saw them!) and he had boxes piled on top of each other, full of flattened original boxes and manuals. There was a living room sized area full of broken and repaired C64's, disk drives, tape drives, printers etc.etc. absolute tonnes of stuff. He had a quick dig around for magazines and we ended up 'unearthing' and filling 7 large boxes (the size that is used to pack fruit and vegetables) full of 1980-1990 magazines in average to very good condition.
A quick summary of my 'find':
-2x Games Computing
-approx. 12x Commodore Computing Internationals
-approx. 24x Your Commodore
-4x Commodore User - including issues 1 and 2!
-approx. 12x ZERO
-approx. 36x Your Computer (Australian general computing magazine)
-approx. 12x Australian Personal Computer
-approx. 24x Australian Commodore and Amiga Review (all early issues)
-approx. 12x Commodore Format
-approx. 18x Commodore World
-approx. 36x The Transactor
-misc. AHOY!, RUN! and Commodore Disk User magazines
-plus also what he claimed was every issue of Compute's Gazette, which with the exception of Volume 2, would appear to be pretty damn accurate (about 12-14 years worth of magazines).
Most of the mags are in quite good condition, but some of them are a little worn from being out in boxes, in a essentially a large shed for many, many years. After going through all of them my hands were very dirty and needed a good wash.
I was quite surprised at all of this and when we started talking price he starts off with "well I know what these are worth to the collector" (uh oh), "so how about $150 for the lot?" (about 60 GBP). So I agreed, and we loaded up the car.
When I got home I got in trouble for spending over my 'allowance' by my wife, but there's a heap of magazines (mainly the Gazettes and other USA magazines) which I don't collect, so they'll be going up on eBay to cover my going over budget this month (we're saving to move house).
Quite a nice haul by my accounts! Anyone else ever stumbled across a treasure trove like this? (there's an auction on ebay at the moment, a heap of old C64, Spectrum, Amiga etc. software from a computer store..)
How's about your finds and stories?
Cheers,
Gizmomelb