Deke Slayton's HP65 is on eBay...

[Ignatz]

I know I can't post links here, but the auction title is: 'HP 65 vintage calculator mint condition ! Deke Slayton APOLLO Soyuz mission 67'

Current asking price: €9,899...

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

This thing has been on and off on eBay for weeks (or even months).

Mind you: It is not Deke Slayton's HP65. The seller does not even pretend that it is. It is an HP65 in pretty condition that comes bundled with an autograph of the three American astronauts of the ASTP including Deke Slayton's.
There is a whole package of other collectibles included as well which were probably given to German artist Detlev van Ravenswaay by NASA. This artist is well known for his "space artwork" some of which was created for NASA in the 1970ies. I have considered contacting Mr. van Ravenswaay about this auction (he maintains a website) to see if the articles are genuine or maybe even stolen but have not done so yet.

Anyway, the price is ridiculous, there are regularly auctions of spaceflight colloecibles, e.g. on "Invaluable", and the usual prices these articles fetch are a fraction of this figure. If it were an Apollo Guidance computer bundled with autographs of Armstong, Aldrin and Collins things would of course look different...

Regards
Max

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(03-17-2020 02:29 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  This thing has been on and off on eBay for weeks (or even months).

Mind you: It is not Deke Slayton's HP65. The seller does not even pretend that it is. It is an HP65 in pretty condition that comes bundled with an autograph of the three American astronauts of the ASTP including Deke Slayton's.
(...)
Anyway, the price is ridiculous, there are regularly auctions of spaceflight colloecibles, e.g. on "Invaluable", and the usual prices these articles fetch are a fraction of this figure. If it were an Apollo Guidance computer bundled with autographs of Armstong, Aldrin and Collins things would of course look different...

Correct.

[grsbanks]

The same seller is trying to sell a second-hand DM16L as a "rare" machine for €200....

I sent them a message basically saying that the DM16L is *not* rare and can be bought new, direct from the manufacturer at half that price.

[Paul Dale]

I've had a couple of conversations along these lines in various areas.
Generally, they aren't worth the effort disputing the response. The final bids say everything.

My most recent was a HP-29C and my question was "did it work?" The response was that if it did work it would be listed at three to four times the price. It didn't sell for anything like what I was ready to offer untested. I assumed that it didn't work and that it was worth at most a tenth of the asking price. I'll pay a bit more for good cosmetic condition (which it was).

Needless to say, it didn't sell. I lost the device to a far lower bidder, someone else got a device that most likely didn't do everything they wanted.


Pauli

PS: I'd like a nice clean 29C at some point -- it needn't work but the price would have to be such that I could purchase it and get it repaired by my good German friends for a reasonable total.

[BruceH]

(03-18-2020 10:44 AM)grsbanks Wrote:  I sent them a message basically saying that the DM16L is *not* rare and can be bought new, direct from the manufacturer at half that price.

Which confirms that it is indeed rare to find one on eBay at that price.
Nothing misleading there... ;-)