[hereonout2]

Indeed, some big, rare and once costly things are just too cumbersome to have a huge market.

Who has the space to store an antique mainframe?

Same thing happens in other markets, industrial grade 12 foot bed CNC lathes can be picked up for similar prices to small hobby machines. Great deal if you have a spare barn, 3 phase power and the logistics to move it. Not many do!

[ghaff]

Even at a smaller scale, I'm sure a ton of us have somewhat historically interesting antique computers in our attics or basements and a ton of people here would pipe up to yell "You can't just toss (or recycle) an Osborne!!!" Well I can because it's not doing anyone any good in my attic and I'm not wasting a lot of effort to transfer it to someone else's attic after they play with it for a day.