Pays to be a Nerd? Slide rules have become collectibles

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Bill Pflanz

#21
The Otis King calculator is from a British manufacturer who made these cylindrical models from 1921-1972. It is relatively easy to find information on it and even instructions using an Internet search. I am learning that finding its collector's value is a little more difficult. Depending on the rarity, it could be worth as much as $400 or as little as $30.

Ebay lists slide rules for sale but do not list the values of the ones that were sold. I suspect collectors do not like publishing what the values are because it drives the price up when they go to buy. If you are trying to determine the value of a particular make and model it will take some research on your part.

I started this thread as a Nerd topic but I am finding out it is a serious collectible that can be profitable for those who trade in them. Sometimes they might be willing to pay a lot to get a particular rarity but they are probably also hoping to pick up a valuable collectible on the cheap. I have a friend who sells and collects model airplanes and he sometimes finds models on ebay that are selling for less than $100 and he can re-sell them for $1000.

Bill Pflanz
 
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#23
I wonder if the same is true for Sinclair Scientific calculators?
I would have killed for one of those. Dad came home with a Bomar Brain before I got far enough along to need a slide rule. I learned how from my high school chemistry prof, Doc Patterson, just for fun.
I went to college with a TI-55. It was infamously known in the EE school as the LED Battery Eater.
My earliest calculators are all busted, but I still use a HP11c from 1982 at work...
HP did on campus demonstrations in '84 or '85 with their 11C and 15C. LCD, programmable, and virtually indestructible. They gave me a $100 trade-in for my TI-55 and then threw it in the trash can. Oh, I had wanted to do that so many times when the battery would die 5 minutes before the end of an exam. I think it was 5 years before I had to replace the 4 button batteries in my HP.
 

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Dimitri

#24
I'm 23 as you all know. But I had bought a side rule last fall. Its great for quick work but I rarely use it cause its in my mind a collectible. A 6" slide rule from the GE's Missile and Space Vehicle Department, which was responsible from everything from ICBM's, to the RVX-2A Reentry vehicle, to the initial planning and calculating the requirements, and orbital pathways to be taken by the Apollo program. So its seen even from me little use. Its history from at least 25 years before I was born, the address is even pre-zip code! :cool:

I did also buy a HP-41C in near new condition (actually it looked completely brand new when I got it without the box though) that I use now in my new college program (Mechanical Design) it is older then I am. And apparently after today in a better condition too!



Dimitri
 
#25
You just can't beat the HP handhelds. The HP sales people would use the old, trade-in TI units during the product demonstrations. They would throw them at a wall from across the room and everyone would laugh as they disintegrated into 57 pieces. Then they would throw a 15C the same way and ask someone to pick it up and do a square root.
 
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