ACP Components entire inventory for sale - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 25, 2016, 11:46:57 pm
content: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ENTIRE-INVENTORY-ELECTRONIC-COMPONENTS-LARGE-QTY-APPROX-100-MILLION-PARTS-/371537162911?hash=item568157329fWow, 100 million components in one ebay listing, must be a record for ebay.Anyway should be interesting to see where this stockpile ends up.Standby for Dave's head exploding in 3...2...1

author: uncle_bob
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 12:24:23 am
content: Hi100 million partsOne wonders what sort of parts they actually might be. In these days of 10,000+ part reels, it's surprising how quickly you can get to some pretty crazy numbers. I've been through a few places that have a lot of "stuff" that is worth less than the cost to haul it out the door.Truth in lending ... never been to ACP, don't know anything about them at all.Bob

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 12:32:07 am
content: I noticed in one of the photos there was a whole section with Z80 chips - DMA, PID, CTC, etc....

author: uncle_bob
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 12:39:21 am
content: HiThere have been a few places I've gotten talked into visiting. The "great chips" are all still on boards. You have to deal with the blue wires tied to bent up pins on a bunch of them and .....Without pictures and details of the inventory (287 pieces of 2N404 in original GE bags, 4,219 1N34A's mfg by WECo in 1951 .. in lead wrappers...) there is very little way to work out a value.Bob

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 12:42:15 am
content: $300K?I bet the majority is complete garbage nobody wants. I doubt the few items that someone desperately does want would be worth the cost of transporting, storage and organizing it all.

author: uncle_bob
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 12:52:23 am
content: HiDon't forget to add in the cost of the hazardous waste disposal fees on the part of the "complete inventory" that now is considered toxic. Vintage asbestos wrapped heaters ....Bob

author: Jay_Diddy_B
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 01:23:35 am
content: Hi,If you look at the feedback on eBay you see about 300 feedbacks per month, with an average sell price of about 3 dollars, so $900/month.And people complaining that shipping was $5.00 instead of $3.00 (not allowing for the cost of packaging materials and the trip to the post office).So around 300 months to sell the $300K of inventory, 25 years !!I would say the inventory is over priced by about 10x may be more.In the words of the Dragons' 'for that reason I'm out'.Regards,Jay_Diddy_B

author: uncle_bob
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 01:44:41 am
content: HiOk, let's say he gets feedbacks on 1/3 of the business. Now it's $2700 per month.Let's see, you need to run 900 labels, and 900 boxes and find 900 parts and list 900 more parts .. hmmmLet's say it's 15 minutes per. That comes out to 225 hours (maybe). There's 160 working hours in a normal 4 week month. You have 1.5 people moving around to do this. Toss in answering questions and disputes and returns and refunds and all the rest, you have at least 2 people full time.So 2700 / mo and 320 hours, you are working for $8.43 an hour.Gee, I wonder why the lights just went out ... maybe forgot to include that in the figures.Storage space / building will run you $1000 a month with lights / heat and TAXES.So 1700 / mo and 320 hours, you are working for $5.35 an hour .... oh ... did I hear the word TAXES? Your $5.35 is before the employer's side of stuff is pulled out. Let's call that $4.35 an hour.Check the minimum wage laws in your area, we dropped below the minimums a ways up the page.You have two people working for less than minimum wage and you *never* recoup a dime of that inventory investment.Uncle Bob's great financial deals institute will gladly take your $300K, and actually send you a check each year. Then you don't have to work for sub minimum wage and you actually wind up a few (very few, I have LARGE fees) dollars in the cookie jar each year. Principle ... what principle ... I have no idea where that could have goneJust like the money put into Uncle Bob's great deal, the value of your $300K inventory goes down each year at a pretty steep rate. You need to sell the stuff fast. A very standard textbook number is 20% a year (loss not gain .... just like Uncle Bob's great deal ...).Bob

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 03:48:29 pm
content: If I had won the lottery then this is the sort of thing I would purchase. Someone could easily spend a couple of years going through all the boxes with, once in a while, a discovery of something out of the ordinary. After that? Some of it would be recycled for the precious metals and other items could be sent to the companies specializing in sales of parts for vintage equipment. It's very similar to the find that Dave made with a massive component collection that really should be put to good use.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 03:56:21 pm
content: A couple of times I've bought a car or large van full of component stock at bankruptcy auctions.I totally agree that it can be huge fun going through it all and finding intersting stuff, but the novelty soon starts to wear off and after extracting a lifetime supply of all the stuff you're ever likely to use you just want to see the back of the rest of it....

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 04:34:13 pm
content: Quote from: German_EE on February 26, 2016, 03:48:29 pmI'd buy $300K worth of Agilent test gear and forget this.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 04:37:24 pm
content: I make a fair bit of cash doing this actually. I'd probably only pay about $20k equiv for that as there's probably a massive disposal cost under WEEE here in the UK. About 80% would go straight in the bin, 10% to metal reclamation and the rest trickled onto eBay. You can't make a quick buck with this stuff; you have to play the long game.It's amazing what people will pay for rancid toxic old crap on ebay though.

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 05:05:23 pm
content: Quote from: MrSlack on February 26, 2016, 04:37:24 pmOr at least what certain vendors will ask for it (2 DTL gates in a ceramic flatpack and a few micrograms of gold, looks like that's worth $50!). Not sure much of it ever sells though. The mountains of junk for sale only started once eBay made listings basically free.http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Vintage-Flatpack-TI-IC-SN7400-6812A-Gold-SN-7400-/262283735669Three available. In five years, there will still be three available.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 05:27:42 pm
content: It sells pretty well actually. Usually to collectors, audiophiles and gold rush idiots. If they dropped that to $50 it'd be gone in a week.Germanium transistors, shitty old capacitors, gold ICs and transistors, you name it. They're queuing up!

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 06:08:41 pm
content: Quote from: MrSlack on February 26, 2016, 05:27:42 pmA tiny amount sells, in small qtys. The problem is moving, storing, cataloguing, identifying etc. etc....it's only worthwhile if the stuff is cheap enough to start with as the vast majority is worthless in practice due to the time taken with the above.After cherry-picking the obvious gems, value falls off rapidly.In both instances where I bought a ton of stuff, a single box pretty much paid for it all, so the rest was basically free.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 06:49:49 pm
content: This is true. You have to go with the high rollers or sell well presented lots really. I tend not to sell individual parts unless they have crazy value or high demand and then just undercut other sellers by 1 pence. Enough to rank first for people who sort price low to high.

author: strangersound
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 07:28:43 pm
content: Quote from: MrSlack on February 26, 2016, 05:27:42 pmThe boutique guitar pedal makers and hobbyists are who want the germanium transistors, old caps and such.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 08:31:03 pm
content: Quote from: strangersound on February 26, 2016, 07:28:43 pmExcept in a situation like this, where the stuff has been on sale for many years, a lot of that stuff will have already been cherry-picked, unless they were asking silly money for them.

author: bitslice
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2016, 02:22:59 am
content: Quote from: Brumby on February 26, 2016, 12:32:07 amIt's so annoying to see a box of DMA chips buried in a warehouse full of tat I don't want.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2016, 10:23:47 am
content: Z80 DMA ICs come up often. Same with the SIO and CTC. I skip dived about 200 Z80 series devices back in 1999 outside my old employer (they literally let me take anything I wanted). No one wanted them then so they went back in the skip... probably should have kept hold of them. Would have paid for a few currys

author: bitslice
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2016, 08:19:23 pm
content: Quote from: MrSlack on February 27, 2016, 10:23:47 am200Hindsight is a wonderful thingIf anyone has a box of Z80 DMA they want to swap for curry vouchers, I'd be happy to oblige.I'm hoping for a fire sale before I have to stump up a couple of quid each.

author: iampoor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2016, 08:26:26 pm
content: Quote from: strangersound on February 26, 2016, 07:28:43 pmYep. But most of the goo germanium transistors seem to be coming from Russia these ays.Now, maybe if they ha a few hundred thousand OC28's it would be worth it.

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2016, 08:30:15 pm
content: Indeed. I've got a stash of a couple of hundred OC and 2N germanium transistors I'm going to dump on eBay when the prices get silly again. As in £15 a transistor sillyI actually remember in the early 1980s my mother worked in a radio repair shop and they were retro fitting silicon transistors to some radios because the germanium ones were snuffing it. They were crap then as they are now!

author: uncle_bob
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 28, 2016, 08:33:49 pm
content: Quote from: bitslice on February 28, 2016, 08:19:23 pmHiIf you can send me a picture of the proper markings .... Bob's Custom IC's can get you some chipsOnce things get scarce and expensive, the re-marking guys come in. We yell a lot about eBay and this sort of thing. It occurs through much more formal channels than that and more often than it should. After the parts travel through a number of hands, knowing what is real and what is "not quite" can get pretty tough.Bob

author: bitslice
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2016, 09:39:51 pm
content: Quote from: uncle_bob on February 28, 2016, 08:33:49 pmHi Bob,I'm not really sure what the proper markings might be, although I've seen plenty of the fake Z80 CPUs on eBayActually I've just popped back to this thread to mention that I had another look on eBay while I was thinking about it, and unexpectedly found someone sellingthirtyZ8410APS DMA chips for $8.25+P&P, so I've just bought them all.http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272147447127the listing makes a big deal about counterfeiting, so I imagine he's a legit seller?I guess now I need a dusty box of Z80 PIO'sedit:oh again, someone selling ten Z0842004 PIO for £7.50 and ten Z0843004 CTC for £4.99, so that's handy.OK, so now I need a dusty box of 32Kx8 RAM

author: uncle_bob
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 28, 2016, 10:05:39 pm
content: Quote from: bitslice on February 28, 2016, 09:39:51 pmHiYou may get legit chips. In that case, you use them and they are gone. You may get "other chips". In that case they go in a box and sit until you have time to figure out what's going on. The eventual result is that there are fewer good chips and more "other chips". If somebody comes along and buys your whole stash of chips, they all look fine. They don't have your knowledge of where the chips came from and what happened when the first one was plugged in.Crazy!Bob

author: iampoor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2016, 10:40:05 pm
content: Quote from: MrSlack on February 28, 2016, 08:30:15 pmIf you ever find any lots that you wouldn't mind letting go at less silly prices, shoot me a PM.characterizing them is quite frustrating, but they DO sell. Just gotta find some low leakage ones (I do build guitar pedals, if it isnt obvious by now haha!)I elieve it. I cant imagine how low the lifespan of germanium transistors must have been in hot environments with lots of vibration.Chara

author: MrSlack
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2016, 10:58:55 pm
content: Quote from: iampoor on February 28, 2016, 10:40:05 pmI'll list some on ebay shortly and post here. I've designed a semi-automatic rig for characterising them as I've got so many. I haven't tested it yet. Basically it's a hard reference voltage (lm317) set at 9.000v and a few resistors which are selected from a batch of 5% ones that set the collector current and base current accurately. The base is open circuit by default but a computer controlled relay closes to connect the base current. My UT-61E is connected to the PC and a python script controls the relay and reads the voltages form the meter. All you do is plug a transistor in, press enter, it waits for the quiescent state to settle, measures the leakage then the relay closes and it measures the gain. The gain is adjusted against the leakage current as well. Out pops two values, write them on the bag, stick on ebay. Goto 1.Whole rig is battery powered to avoid ripple, transients etc.