How to purhcase a fully working HP41CX on eBay?

[albertofenini]

well ... that could be ... but it will certainly limit the size of the collection, which we don't want to do ...
it is however what we have done for most of our collection (at least the led models)
but when it comes to certain models it's impossible to retain from buying -> repairing -> adding to the collection ...

(04-14-2023 04:06 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  .
Hi, all,

albertofenini Wrote:but .... you still miss the one for everyday use and so it goes ...

There's a simple solution, which is what I do:

- get a pristine one for your collection, not meant to use it regularly, if at all.

- get a second pristine/very good one as a backup, again not meant to use it regularly, if at all

- if you'd still want to use that particular model regularly, get a 3rd one either for free (as part of some transaction: "I buy this expensive one but you include that faulty one for free") or for peanuts, which is fully working but with severe cosmetic flaws, so that you won't feel bad using it and risk damaging the cosmetics as they're already bad enough to begin with.

For instance, I own a couple of pristine SHARP PC-1211 pocket computers, not the slightest scratch or blemish on them so I won't risk using them, I wouldn't feel comfortable about it. But as I *do* want to use it a lot (namely to key in and run tons of my 40+ year-old programs for it in order to document and upload them to my site), I got for free this third one affected with bleeding LCD display which looks bad but is perfectly useable:

SHARP PC-1211 w/ bleeding LCD display

and that's it: perfect peace of mind on my side and a poor but still-useable classic machine saved from oblivion or destruction.

V.