You're not wrong about this though.
I'd almost rather use the board as is or attempt the mod myself rather than pay.
It's a weird mentality surrounding IBM gear,
My idea is that users of ancient IBM iron either want to use it as-is, or tinker with it themselves.
That is certainly true for me. I will only buy old IBM gear for cheap prices on the assumption that I am going to do a complete tear-down and re-build every time, even if only for the sake of a thorough cleaning and adjustment. Although if it is not an ANSI-standard piece I will do whatever I can to get it closer to that standard.
And that is obviously why "the one true keyboard" is probably orders of magnitude better-known and sought after than its superior progenitor.
I don't care about whether my purchase is dirty or incomplete, my only requirements are that it works properly electrically and that the case is not broken or damaged. Although I derive considerable enjoyment from "messing around" at the work table to build something special for myself, when I know that I am doing it for a stranger it becomes a rather tedious chore.
But I cannot help but believe that there is a small subset of users, particularly on a forum like this, who might have poor manual or mechanical skills, little or no space and/or tools, and/or more money than time on their hands, who would relish the opportunity to purchase a ready-to-play specialty product for a small handful of ten-dollar bills more than the price of a raw, kludgey, unmodified obsolete piece of keyboard history.
Although past members such as ezrahilyer and 1avidcollector were insulted and flamed unjustly and sometimes ruthlessly in past enterprises, they successfully demonstrated that there is a small but strong market for nicely modded, prime-time-ready IBM history.
So I think I have decided to do the AT mod and list it at $200 on ebay when I am finished. Now the question is whether I want to do considerably more work and add the Alt keys, and at least another few ten-dollar bills for that serious aggravation.
