Obsolete electronics are still hot, apparently

Do you ever regret discarding your old gadgets from the 80s and 90s? In fact, did you ever throw them out as soon as you got an upgrade or a new, technically advanced one? Well, you know what. I don’t ever recall throwing one out.

In fact, truth be told, I still have, somewhere, my very first mobile phone and the two that followed afterwards. They weren’t smartphones so the most they could and can still do is make phone calls.

I still have an old Sony Walkman that I bought in the early 90s and somewhere, lying around the place, is a cassette player from the mid-80s. I don’t discard them not because I think they could be valuable someday but because they have memories associated with them. Anyone stick the cassette player against a radio speaker to record a song? Yes, that was me too. But there’s no monetary value in that.

Now there’s a report out that says your vintage gadgets from the 80s and 90s may be worth a fortune. Okay, maybe ‘fortune’ might be stretching the truth a bit, but people in the know reckon that someone out there is willing to pay for your out-of-date gadgets. They may be collectors of such items because the chances of them being refurbished is minimal. Again I think that this is stretching the truth a fair amount because the report seems to imply that all gadgets are attractive and so will the price.

I think that a lot of this is sheer nonsense. I’ve seen exchange deals for electronics and tried to trade in an old tablet for a new one, meaning I’d get a bit of money back towards another purchase. Do you know that the shop declined because it wasn’t what they were looking for?

I’d like to know who exactly buys out-of-date electronics. Have you ever seen the movie “Mortal Engines” in which cities ride across the terrain on wheels in an apocalyptic environment looking to consume smaller cities for fuel?

In one city, London, there is a man who’s fascinated by old items. Now this movie is set way into the future, way, way into the future, so something like a toaster is fascinating to him because he’s never seen one before nor does he know what it does. What does he do with it? He keeps it in a museum.

Now I don’t think there’s some weird fellow collecting old iPhones and cassette players so that he can start a museum. So the question remains, why would anyone want to buy an old gadget unless they know how to refurbish it and sell it on?

But not all items can be upgraded. You take your Android phone or tablet with an OS of 7 or below and you can be sure it can’t be upgraded. In fact, the outdated operating system of most devices cannot be upgraded. The only way to upgrade the operating system of a phone is...to buy a new one.

But the report says that items like the Nintendo, the Motorola phone, the first iPhone and the IBM PC are hot for the taking. Put it up for sale and someone is going to grab it. According to the report, a Nintendo could go for £173 and the classic Sony Walkman could sell for £723. The 1996 Nokia phone was pretty expensive and considered advanced for its time and might now sell for £113 and if you have an old Motorola phone sitting in your cupboard, someone might buy it for £295.

Now, of course, with all these price tags come the words, ‘might sell’. To be honest, I find it hard to believe that someone out there is willing to pay that much for an outdated device. I think outdated electronics and electrics are a little like cars. Once the car is driven off the showroom floor within minutes its value begins to drop by thousands. These things are not gold or property that go up or down in value as the market demands. In my view, there isn’t much use for such items once their operating system and memory are obsolete.