savers 38c

We recently went to Savers to occupy the family for an hour or so.

Of course any good hp collector goes to thrift shops. The good ones have products sorted on the shelves. Sometimes, tucked somewhere in between the 83 SLR cameras and the 7 glasses that have the Schlitz logo on the side is a small collection of office stuff. Usually, there are a couple of calculators--the freebies originally distributed at conferences or whatever. On occasion, you will find an old hp--probably discarded by a family member of the original owner or someone else who doesn't realize the value--placed on the shelf by a worker who simply can't get it to come on so they stick $3 on it and it's done.

This was one just such occasion. I picked up a 38c financial from 1982 at Savers for $2.99. Unfortunately, there was no adapter and the battery pack is corroded. I'll eventually build a replacement battery pack. But, what a find. These places sell beat-up old TI's with little value for $19.99.

Now, I have to start going to thrift shops more frequently.

Cleaned up and working, this calculator would probably auction for $40's or $50's. But I don't sell hp calculators. Nope, when I'm gone, I expect someone to take my old hp's and drop them off at Savers so they can get 25% off that darling sweater and some other geek can come along and buy them at pennies to the dollar what they are really worth. Then, said geek can calculate his or her savings with a good old 38c financial. It's sort of a geek bequeathing system that uses unsuspecting thrift shops.

Funny story: While still at Savers, I used my mobile to check ebay to see if it had any 38c's for auction. I should have searched for 'hp 38c' instead of just '38c'. I didn't even realize until I saw the search results--pages and pages of bras.