Rationalisation of Dedicated collection - eBay sales

Monsieur Plastique · Post by **Monsieur Plastique** » Sat May 28, 2011 9:10 pm

Hi all,

I am just writing to advise that I will disposing of a number of fine dedicated machines in the near future on eBay. I am selling them on behalf of my brother who has been a collector of dedicated machines for 30 years. After 18 months of very careful consideration, he has decided to part with a number of desirable machines (as well as some that are of lesser interest and ubiquitous) whilst still keeping those that he wishes to play against himself. As he is a very strong player, all of the machines he is selling are below his playing strength (he used to play them in tournaments and matches against each other), so the decision was made to retain the machines that he enjoys playing against himself and that either offer him a challenging game or continue to have particular interest to him.

The decision was not made lightly and as he and I are chess computer enthusiasts, we are hoping these machines will find appreciative and caring homes. All are in full working order and range from excellent to practically mint condition. Obviously the details of each will be described in the auctions and each will have accompanying photos.

The sales are to be strictly eBay only and I am envisaging each auction will last the full 10 days. I have not decided how many to put up at once, but as I have limited resources myself to sell them, I doubt all will be going up at once. That said, if there is any particular interest by any one party in acquiring more than one of them, please let me know which ones you might be interested in and I will try to auction them within the same time frame. That way the postage costs would of course be more economical.

Here is a list of "definite" machines - I may not have all the precise details of them yet.

Novag Super Constellation with Novag Clock (will not seperate)
Scisys Turbostar 432 with Kasparov Openings module
Fidelity Designer 2100
Conchess Escorter with standard module plus "A2" 2mhz module
Richard Lang Chess 2001
Mephisto Exclusive MMIV
Novag Amber
Mephisto Mondial II
Novag Star Opal
Mephisto Miami
Tandy 1650 portable chess (this is the equivalent of the Scisys Explorer portable from around 1983)

There may be a couple more, but no decision has been made regarding these yet. I will update this thread when the first units are up for auction.

Larry · Post by **Larry** » Sun May 29, 2011 3:16 am

Hi Jon, I have also been giving a bit of thought to downsizing my
collection by offloading some doubles, and a few others I frankly only
bought because of irresistable prices. Down here in the southern hemisphere
we have to accept that most buyers will be an ocean away, and will
therefore not bid as high as they normally would. I was a bit surprised to
see the Novag Amber on the list (elo1940), but the others are understandable.
I hope all goes well in the auctions.
all the best,
Larry

Larry · Post by **Larry** » Sun May 29, 2011 3:22 am

I don't suppose Cameron has one of these he wants to sell?...
http://cgi.ebay.de/Schachcomputer-Mephi ... 2c5d00e912

LH

rlsuth · Post by **rlsuth** » Sun May 29, 2011 4:23 am

Larry wrote:Hi Jon, I have also been giving a bit of thought to downsizing my
collection by offloading some doubles, and a few others I frankly only
bought because of irresistable prices.

Scisys Chess Champion Mark V?

SirDave · Post by **SirDave** » Sun May 29, 2011 6:38 am

M. Plastique:
Will we be seeing these units on the U.S., UK, and/or AU eBay?

Monsieur Plastique · Post by **Monsieur Plastique** » Sun May 29, 2011 8:30 am

Larry wrote:I don't suppose Cameron has one of these he wants to sell?...
http://cgi.ebay.de/Schachcomputer-Mephi ... 2c5d00e912

LH

Hi Larry,

Sadly no 16 - 32 bit Mephisto exotica. Actually the Amber is a double (well, triple I think, as is the Miami). Heck, I own 4 x Saitek Advanced Travels myself but I'm not offloading any of them!! I had a Miami before that and after 12 years of literally constant use I finally wore the board out - but I love the program so much I stocked up for life...

I did warn Cameron that I strongly suspected they would not get the money he was hoping for. I will be suprised if the lesser machines will even sell, but I promised I would attempt to sell them nonetheless.

Monsieur Plastique · Post by **Monsieur Plastique** » Sun May 29, 2011 8:37 am

rlsuth wrote:
Larry wrote:Hi Jon, I have also been giving a bit of thought to downsizing my
collection by offloading some doubles, and a few others I frankly only
bought because of irresistable prices.

Scisys Chess Champion Mark V?

If he had a mint one of those I'd buy it myself. Those are so hard to find with perfect boards.

I'll let you know what he is thinking about. These are the remaining machines which may go up, but he and I are still deciding on that. Plenty to go on with at the moment.

There will likely also be a Mephisto Mobil and if so it will likely come with an MMV module. But I am tossing up whether I want this one myself, but I also think being in superb condition and being so small and light it will fetch good money for him.

There may also be a beautiful Fidelity Elegance, complete with a second (faulty) donor Elegance for parts. After all, you just can't sell one of these without giving the buyer a second one so he / she can repair the main one when something goes wrong

He was thinking about selling a Simultano and obviously it's a lot weaker than him but it's quite a unique piece and I think he will hold onto that.

Monsieur Plastique · Post by **Monsieur Plastique** » Sun May 29, 2011 8:44 am

SirDave wrote:M. Plastique:
Will we be seeing these units on the U.S., UK, and/or AU eBay?

Hi SirDave,

They will be listed on AU eBay only, but obviously with delivery to anywhere in the World - so they ought to appear if anyone uses a worldwide search. They will all be sent via either International Registered Post or Insured International (depends on weight) and double boxed with padding in between the inside (computer) box and outside box.

Unfortunately posting stuff out from Australia is very expensive compared to sending stuff out from the US, and although I never make any money from the postage (I usually make a small loss), I only have a 4.6 / 5 star rating for postage costs. Nothing I can do about it - and often I post stuff for free and I still get down-rated for postage charges!!

But buyers are unfortunately going to baulk at the cost of the postage and not be happy that unlike the US, we can't get tracking numbers without paying a fortune for them, which is another reason I dont think they will fetch anything like the money he is hoping for.

Post by **Steve B** » Sun May 29, 2011 10:47 am

Larry wrote:I don't suppose Cameron has one of these he wants to sell?...
http://cgi.ebay.de/Schachcomputer-Mephi ... 2c5d00e912

LH

Well it wont sell at that price thats for sure
Not sure what exactly those two objects are in the Green piece compartment?
the darker objects looks like a loose button from one of my winter coat's
who knows ..could possibly be some crucial electronic components that have come loose rendering the computer utterly useless or something
Squinting Regards
Steve

Monsieur Plastique · Post by **Monsieur Plastique** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:00 am

Hi all,

Mephisto Exclusive MMIV is up:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... :MESELX:IT

And the Novag Amber:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... :MESELX:IT

Monsieur Plastique · Post by **Monsieur Plastique** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 1:11 pm

Hi again all,

The MMIV and Amber have found enthusiastic new owners who I know will take good care of them.

I hope to have the next batch up for auction soon, comprising of:

Novag Super Connie plus clock
Fidelity Designer 2100
Scisys Turbostar 432 with Kasparov openings module
Conchess Escorter with original and 2Mhz A2 module

I will let you know when the auctions are actually up. Unfortunately on these and future auctions I am going to have to pass on a $9 postage surcharge whenever the postal destination lies within the US. Unfortunately Australia Post slugs me this $9 fee, said to be an aviation "security" levy. I was at first told it was a Christmas / New Year thing, but have now found out it runs all year long. I realise postage rates are bad enough when buying from Australia and this makes it even worse again. Sorry about that, but as I say in the auctions, I only charge exactly what the post office charges me and I pay for all packaging materials myself.

SirDave · Post by **SirDave** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:24 pm

Ah, the Super Constellation (following the Constellation) one of the upper-crust Novags of the mid '80s with a very modern design and excellent firmware for that period. If memory serves, Novag released two more 'upgrades' with much the same design, the Primo and Supremo in the latter half of the '80s. Then, inexplicably, Novag put out the Mentor that used much the same design, but seemed to have a crippled CPU with a reduced ELO to match (to save money?).

Jon, I received the Amber and am extremely happy with it and the transaction. Anybody buying these units he is putting up on eBay can be assured of an excellent transaction in all respects.

Btw: the Amber box says that you can choose to have the Book on or off, but I don't see any selection for that in the manual. Do you have any information on that? It's not a big deal for me, but it would be nice to know if the option is actually available as a selection if you or your brother have ever checked that out.

Monsieur Plastique · Post by **Monsieur Plastique** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 1:23 am

Hi Dave,

Although I have not had a lot of experience with the Amber model myself, I think the box would be wrong. I only recall that series having various levels of response randomisation and not thinking on opponent's time as being the only options available to modify the responses for a given thinking time.

The ranges that began with the Mentor 16 were more a series intended to be "competitive" (but weren't) with other budget-priced 8 bit programs that used the 6301Y chip. So although it was only intended to be a "budget" design, it had already been well and truly overtaken by the Europa and Marco Polo designs from Mephisto. Even the original Constellation 2.0 Mhz had superior hardware specs to the Mentor 16, plus the original Constellation had much more space available for the program itself, whereas in the Mentor 16 (and the future Novag 6301Y derivatives), they eschewed program space for a much larger (though very interesting) openings book.

The Primo wasn't really an upgrade of the Super Constellation design (the latter posessing far more powerful hardware, a much larger program and openings book), but it could certainly be seen to be an evolution of the original 16Kb Constellation design - at least in terms of refinement if not hardware. There is no doubt though that the Primo is a much stronger program than the Mentor 16 (or in my experience any of the later series of Novag 16 Kb programs). I think most people would agree that the Forte series of programs represented the evolution away from the Super Constellation series.

Actually, one of the machines to go up is an original Primo in absolutely superb condition.