Blue Label Space Saving M - Canada

[nowsharing]

:mod: :mod:

Somewhere on ebay...A blue label space saver in an improperly labeled auction.

[kishy]

WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

Why do people always post mislabeled ones...

[ricercar]

You were hoping for obscurity?

[kishy]

You were hoping for obscurity?

I have a dream.

One day I will find something so grossly mislabeled that only I will see it in time. A good condition Model M mini...

Come to think of it, I know a place that probably has one or two or five. Gotta get back out there soon.

[didjamatic]

I have a dream.  One day I will find something so grossly mislabeled that only I will see it in time.

I have a relative that saw a listing for a 1958 Chevette for nearly free.  He knew they never made one so he went to check it out, and ended up buying a 58 Corvette from a lady who was widowed.  Her husband had the car parked for years in a barn.  True story and she's lucky he's the one that found it because he wrote her a proper check for it rather than taking advantage of someone in her situation.

[ricercar]

he wrote her a proper check for it

Admirable.

--
On the other hand--I scored a many-hundred dollar Sabine stereo feedback eliminator for $24 due to an eBay auction title typo. Was driven only on Sundays by little old ladies in a church.

[nowsharing]

Sorry Kishy!! I removed the link to make the future owner work harder for their space saver.

You should see my awesome collection of Le Creuset pans that I've accumulated from misspellings. Lecreuset, le cruset, le crueset--there are so many possibilities for disaster with that brand.

[ricercar]

ripster really wants to win the troll poll.

Hey rip: you might like to play go. Unlike chess, the objective is to win despite the opponent seeing and (presumably) understanding every move.

[nowsharing]

he wrote her a proper check for it rather than taking advantage of someone in her situation.

That was good of him, but if he were a real gent he'd have auctioned it on Christie's for her.

I'm torn on this issue. On the one hand I agree that people shouldn't be taken advantage of, but on the other hand they're lazy ebay sellers.

[kishy]

I appreciate the gesture...even if it was then counteracted by someone who apparently has no memory of what it was like to be 20 and lacking funds.

Especially when it's not NIB so it's not even "good enough" for him.

[didjamatic]

Ripster, you freaking kill me.   If it's any consolation, I had this in my watch list a few hours after it was listed.

Kishy, it is easy to earn enough extra cash to buy a keyboard in less time than you spend on this forum.  Seriously, just get a temp job, donate plasma or drill for maple syrup or something.  There are plenty of people on this forum that would give you an excellent deal on a board, including me.  And for the record, I remember very well what it was like to be 20 and struggling financially.  Go dig through local thrift stores for crap and sell it on ebay then buy as many keyboards as you like.  It looks like your sig has plenty of boards you could sell to get a Mini.

If you need a pep talk, see this motivational post.

As for getting a great deal, nothing at all in the world wrong with that, scoring a great deal is half the fun of getting something rare.  Paying a scrapper a buck for a M13 is not morally wrong in anyway, to him it's scrap and $1 is more than they'd get otherwise, you created a win-win by finding it and knowing what it was.  But elderly widows should have automatic protection from getting screwed and paying a little old lady $500 for her late husband's classic Vette would be inexcusable.

[Half-Saint]

Hey, I had this keyboard on my watch list since forever!

[skcheng]

Hope this is a later board, with a black frame, and hopefully one-piece caps.   Good deal if it stays around $80-100 which is what these appear to be selling for lately.  

Maybe, just maybe Unicomp will be deilvering something similar......

[kishy]

Alright, it's not a matter of lacking the funds, or not having a job (I've had one up until Thursday, and they're now investigating if another position exists for the summer - I work at a college). It's a matter of preferring to put those funds into something more worthwhile (my future, via some sort of GIC or something).

[skcheng]

I looked up the part number on this board.  Here is the same one over at Brandon's site:

1993 1397681

If it's the same board, then it's a later Blue Label with the one piece keycaps.   Same board as my very first Space Saving Mini.   And it should have a black frame.  

Odd that the one piece cap set can be found on both the earliest and some of the latest Minis?

[Half-Saint]

Bah, he won't ship to Europe. On top of that, I'm blocked from bidding so I can't even bid and have it sent to a friend in the States. How's that for a bummer...

[sethstorm]

Bah, he won't ship to Europe. On top of that, I'm blocked from bidding so I can't even bid and have it sent to a friend in the States. How's that for a bummer...

Now you know how us US folks felt when that G80-2100 was on e-bay, and it blocked US bids.

[sethstorm]

When I was 20 I had no resume and could only get the ****ty jobs. This was in retrospect a good thing because you see the other side of society. Dutch white people think they are too good for these jobs. So you mainly see immigrants, white trash, and poor students.

Pay the right price, respect the folks who do that work, and you won't have a problem.  Don't do that and don't be surprised why you get the mix you do get.

Of course, I have a resume - but most of the IT work in my area requires an active security clearance, expensive vendor-specific certs(e.g. Dell, HP hardware), or a degree.  About anything else is worth less than unemployment - taking it would be worse over a good amount of time.

Already seen my share of those in previous (non-IT) jobs.

[skcheng]

Me likey one piece keycaps.  I have three boards with one piece caps and the rest have two piece caps.  

I had emailed the seller on this auction out of curiosity and he mentioned that he "thinks" that the board has two piece caps.  

Hopefully someone will get a decent deal on this board.  It looks nice.

[kishy]

Why do you keep bumping this? Decent deal has already gone out the freakin' window (but I'm still in the game...$14 shipping vs 30 from USA makes this worth investigating)

[kishy]

I'm sure plenty of other people have had their sniping software loaded long ago.

Even so...crushing false hope is almost worse than crushing real hope.

[kishy]

I tried for $71 in the last few seconds, so at least I managed to bump it up $21ish for the winner. Ha.

Though, it is a shame I didn't win it. There will be more I'm sure...

Was the winner a geekhacker?

[phototristan]

so I opened my blue label up and it has drainage walls and holes. Does that make it special or worth more?

[ch_123]

Some had the drainage channels inside, some didn't. Some didn't have the holes at all. I think it was just a case of whatever they had in stock. I bet most of these ones with drainage holes but no channels were made around 1992 or 1993 when they just started making Model Ms with the the drainage channels, and had some old stock left over from the old type which they wanted to use up.

Case in point - Industrials were made in 1995, and the Unicomps made from 1996... no old stock left by that time.

[ch_123]

These days? About $71 US =P

[ch_123]

Other way around - they updated the case molds, but not the internals, but you're definitely right - Lexmark could do whatever it wanted because keyboards were a part of it's core business (at least for those few years anyway) Whereas IBM wanted to wash their hands of manufacturing keyboards so they didn't bother updating the machinery beyond what was absolutely necessary.

Then again, Greenock didn't make Minis, so it's kinda irrelevant here.