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Working Apple I motherboard, vintage flag on auction
It's been a good week for Apple collectors. First two prototype iPhones show up on auction sites, and now a working Apple I motherboard and a vintage flag from the company's European headquarters are up on auction. British auction house Bonhams will put the board and the flag on the block as part of its "History of Science" auction, scheduled for October 22. The board was constructed by Woz himself and bears the number "01-0070". The flag is said to be in "fine condition." Both are expected fetch quite a sum, especially the board, which is estimated to bring as much as US$400,000.
Pathfinder Online's latest alpha patch is live
After no small amount of hand-wringing, the latest alpha patch is live for Pathfinder Online, with the intent of eventually cracking open the servers for stress testing. It's a pretty important patch even without the aim of a stress test, though, as it expands the map size to its full early access scope and fixes a variety of issues with advancement and the game's overall systems. Even if you didn't get to play recently, the development is humming along. Obviously those who didn't get to play also didn't get to experiment with the game's recent auction house functionality, which is explained in depth on the official site. Setting up an auction requires a starting price and a minimum price. Over the auction's duration, the price slowly decreases from the starting price down to the minimum; if no buyers are found at that discount rate, the auction ends unsuccessfully. Check out the full development blog for more details.
Soon you can own the world's first electric keyboard
When Hermann von Helmholtz designed what was essentially the world's first electric keyboard, he didn't do out of a need to lay down crunchy riffs on the shores of the Rhine. What he needed was a way to generate tones and mix timbres in a bid to better understand the musicality and substance of vowel sounds. He ultimately came up with a series of electrically activated tuning forks hooked up to brass resonators, and now you can try to own one of your every own... assuming you've got between at least $20,000 burning a hole in your pocket. This particular unit -- hewn of wood and keys whittled from African ivory -- wasn't made by Helmholtz himself, but it is one of the few remaining examples of such 19th century tech still in existence. To hear auction broker Bonhams tell the tale, there's just one other floating around the United States (another seems to be in safe hands at the University of Toronto). Intrigued? The Helmholtz synthesizer will go up for auction in New York come late October along with a slew of other scientific curios from back in the day.
Excavated ET cartridges will be sold, distributed to museums
Remember when Xbox Entertainment Studios and Lightbox Entertainment spent a weekend digging up a bunch of Atari cartridges from a landfill? Both studios may have gotten the documentary footage they were looking for, but what do you do with the cartridges after the joy of proving an urban tale fades? In the case of Alamogordo, the town that has jurisdiction over said landfill, you sell more than half of them. Reuters reports that the Alamogordo City Council voted 7-0 on Tuesday to sell around 800 of the 1,300 excavated games, with listings to be hosted on eBay and the council's website. The haul includes hundreds of copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the keystone of Atari's video game burial story. Joe Lewandowski, who served as dig site supervisor when Microsoft, Lightbox and a small crowd watched excavators dig up trash in the desert, told Retuers that sales should begin in two weeks and wrap by Christmas. As for the 500 other cartridges, the City of Alamogordo intends to keep some as mementos, with the rest being donated to museums worldwide. You know what they say: One city's trash is another museum's piece of video game history. [Image: Microsoft]
Neverwinter auctioning off five Sergeant Knox companions
The famous Sergeant Knox, Neverwinter NPC questgiver extraordinaire, will be available as a special companion. For a short time, players can bid on one of these purple-quality companions through the auction house. The catch is that there will only be five such Sergeant Knox companions put up for auction during this event, which means that only five (or fewer) players in the game will own one, at least for the time being. As a gold sink, this will undoubtedly be quite effective to suck some of the excess money out of the economy. This special auction will take place from September 11th through the 14th.
Oculus halts Rift pre-orders for suspected resellers
If you've pre-ordered a second-generation Rift headset, don't expect to sell the gadget on eBay. Oculus VR has begun canceling orders for anyone hoping to turn a quick profit. The Oculus Rift developer community was recently outraged by an eBay listing which promoted a pre-ordered Oculus Rift Developer's Kit 2 for $5,000 - a sizeable markup over the gadget's $300 base price. Oculus VR quickly investigated the seller and canceled the pre-order. The listing vanished a short time later. This then prompted a deluge of community members reporting online auction listings, and numerous pre-orders were canceled as a result. Though its hammer of justice is swift, Oculus assures community members that the company performs due diligence before canceling any pre-orders. "Just so everyone is clear, the information provided alone was not enough to take action," Oculus stated, according to a TechCrunch report. "We perform our own investigations with tools at our disposal to make sure that there isn't a false positive." [Image: Oculus VR]
Sotheby's teams up with eBay to stream luxury auctions worldwide
Sotheby's auctions can be prohibitively expensive, but part of the problem is getting there in the first place; not everyone can send people to bid on their behalf. Distance shouldn't be an issue in the near future, though. The company has struck a deal that will have eBay launch a special section for "rare, unique and premium" (i.e. costly) goods where Sotheby's will stream live auctions worldwide, complete with real-time bidding. The section will be limited to New York auctions when it launches in the fall, and it won't include the biggest sales. In short, you won't be scoring a Monet from the comfort of your couch. Sotheby's will eventually expand to other locations, however, so you might not be stuck if some valuable antique goes up for grabs in Hong Kong.
eBay will soon let you pick up purchases from 650 Argos stores
If you love to eBay but are constantly making trips to the Post Office to collect a missed delivery, your nearest Argos store could soon come to your rescue. The two companies have extended their click-and-collect partnership, which began with 50 eBay sellers and 150 stores in September, to encompass 650 stores and over 65,000 eBay sellers by the end of this year. That means where the click and collect delivery option is available at the eBay checkout, you select your nearest store and pick up your purchase(s) whenever it's convenient. With Amazon installing more click-and-collect lockers across the UK, eBay also wants to fit around people's busy schedules. Argos gets more people in through its doors too, allowing it to do something that Amazon isn't able to (yet): get face-to-face with customers.
US Marshals accidentally leak list of Silk Road Bitcoin bidders
Next week, the US Marshals will auction-off the $18 million or-so worth of Bitcoin that the FBI gained when it seized the online black market Silk Road. It turns out, however, that it's not just the usual coterie of geeks and libertarians who are interested in a piece of Russ Ulbricht's action. A list of "interested parties" was inadvertently leaked by a careless Marshal, revealing that major financial institutions could be battling Bitcoin exchanges like Coinbase and SecondMarket in the fight for a portion of the hoard.
World's largest game collection draws over $750K at auction
Last time we checked in on Michael Thomasson, the Guinness-certified owner of the world's largest video game collection, his attempts at selling his massive cache of gaming goods had attracted a top bid of $50,000. Now that the auction has ended, that total has skyrocketed to $750,250. While a full tally of Thomasson's collection would be far too lengthy to include here, some of the highlights include complete sets of all North American games released for the Sega Dreamcast, near-complete sets for every Nintendo console ever released, and some truly esoteric hardware. It's doubtful many of you have heard of the Mattel Aquarius or the RCA Studio II, yet both consoles are included in Thomasson's massive hoard, among dozens of other machines. Though his immense collection now belongs to another devoted gaming geek, Thomasson will not be leaving the world of video games. "I simply have an immediate family and extended family that have needs that need to be addressed," Thomasson explained in his GameGavel auction listing. "While I do not wish to part with these games, I have responsibilities that I have made to others and this action is how I will help meet them." [Image: Bill Lundin/GameGavel]
eBay Valet sells your stuff for you, for a (steep) price
eBay has offered Sell for Me, a service does most of the heavy lifting for you, for sometime. But, it hasn't been widely used. The company seems to think its lack of success might be a combination of poor branding and inconvenience (Sell for Me is only accessible from the desktop site). So today it got a new name and a mobile app, eBay Valet, that lets iPhone users sell their stuff without lifting a finger. (Ok, not literally, since you'll have to lift a finger to operate the app... but you get the idea.) Basically you snap a few photos of whatever it is you want to sell. A representative will give you an estimate of its worth, and if you're still interested, the company will send you a box with a pre-paid shipping label. The eBay will take some pro-quality snaps of your goods, create a listing, send you a notification when it goes live and ship it to the winner when everything is over. Or return the item to you if it fails to sell. For its trouble eBay will take a 30 percent cut of the sale price, however. It's not ideal if you're actually looking to make money, but it sounds like a godsend for the lazy among us just looking to ditch some clutter.
The world's largest video game collection sold for $750,250
Remember the story of Michael Thomasson, who was forced to sell his collection of video games? The Guinness world record-holding haul was eventually snapped up for a whopping $750,250. The unnamed bidder, now short three quarters of a million dollars, will take ownership of one of the largest video game libraries in private ownership, including some more avant-garde pieces of hardware including NUON and the Tapwave Zodiac. Assuming that you weren't the lucky bidder, it's probably time to start hunting through the bins at the back of Gamestop to start your own from scratch. [Image credit: Techspot]
US to begin selling off its Silk Road Bitcoin hoard
When the FBI seized Silk Road and the assets of its founder, it inadvertently became the owner of one of the world's largest Bitcoin hoards. Just six months later, the US has decided that it wants to sell the smaller, Silk Road-owned portion of the stash, made up of 30,000 BTC worth around $18 million. The public auction will take place between 6am and 6pm on June 27th, with the funds being broken down into blocks of 3,000 BTC to make it a little more manageable. If, however, you fancied getting in on the action, be advised that you'll have to front a deposit of $200,000 just to be allowed in. Still, if it'll take you a bit longer to scrounge up that level of cash, the US will also look to sell off Ross "Dread Pirate Roberts" Ulbricht's personal Bitcoin fortune -- currently valued at around $87 million -- before his trial begins in November.
'Largest Game Collection in the World' up on the auction block
Need a bigger backlog of games to work through? Michael Thommason is selling his 11,000-plus game collection, a treasure hoard officially recorded as the largest in the world by Guinness Records, on GameGavel. So 11,000 is a big number and all, but what do you get with that many zeroes? For starters, you get every game released in the US for the: 3DO, Action Max, AGP X-System, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari Jaguar, Atari Jaguar CD, Atari Lynx, Buzztime, Captain Power, Game Boy Advance e-Reader, Neo-Geo Pocket Color, Nintendo Virtual Boy, NUON, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Tapwave Zodiac, Tiger Game.Com, Turbo-Grafx-16 CD and Turbo-Grafx-16 Super CD. Finally, you can get that copy of Blue Stinger you always dreamed of! Thommason writes on his GameGavel listing that he is not exiting the hobby, but is selling his collection due to "immediate family and extended family that have needs that need to be addressed." As of this writing, the top bid is $50,000, with nine days left before the auction closes. [Image: Michael Thommason]
The world's largest video game collection just went up for auction
Meet Michael Thomasson. He's a 41-year-old video game historian who holds the Guinness World Record for the largest video game archive. Now he wants someone else to have it. Thomasson admits that he'd rather not sell his 11,000+ game collection, which includes full catalogues for platforms including Dreamcast, Saturn, Virtual Boy and Lynx, but due to family commitments he's decided to offer it up to the highest bidder. It went up on auction site Game Gavel a couple of days ago with a starting bid of $1, and it's already reached $50,000 ahead of the June 15th deadline. If you're dying to become a world record holder and have the necessary space to store it all, the collection is said to be worth somewhere between $700,000 and $800,000. We wonder if he'll accept installments.
Original Apple rainbow signs from old Apple HQ for sale
You might think you're a true Apple fan, but one lucky bidder is definitely going to have you beat in June. That's when bidding will take place for Apple's original rainbow logo signs that once graced the company's Cupertino headquarters, with bidding expected to reach north of US$15,000. As the auction description states, the signs were removed from Apple headquarters in 1997 and given to "a longtime Apple employee," who remains unnamed. The signs themselves are a bit rough looking, showing plenty of wear and tear from the years they graced the company's campus while basking in the California sunshine. The two signs come in two different sizes, one measuring 46in by 49in and the other coming in at a slightly smaller 33in by 36in, each with its own separate "leaf" piece. The larger apple is made of "stiff foam" while the smaller is crafted out of fiberglass and metal. These are two of the most iconic treasures for Apple fans, so bidding is expected to reach a lofty figure before the dust settles. They'll be sold during the Bonhams "The Story of the 20th Century" auction in New York on June 4. [via The Verge]
Lunch with Tim Cook up for auction
Have a couple of hundred grand burning a hole in your pocket? Want to ask Tim Cook some burning questions about the iWatch or Apple HDTV? Now's your chance! CharityBuzz and The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights announced the 8th Annual RFK Center Spring Online Auction, with lunch with Tim at Caffè Macs on the slate of celebrity experiences up for grabs. Bids for the one-on-one lunch meeting started at US$10,000; the experience is valued at $100,000. Last year, a coffee meeting with Cook raised $610,000 for the RFK Center. This year you'll be able to dine on oysters, crab-crusted red snapper, vegetarian curry, pizza, or anything else you want, all while annoying Apple's CEO with your insistent questions about "future products." As of publication time, the only bidder was Scot Wingo, CEO of Channel Advisor. Surely someone would be willing to give me $350,000 or so, and I'll ask Tim your question for you... You have just under ten days to make your bid on lunch with Tim. Photo of Caffè Macs by Yelp user Jing Y.
FCC sets up the 'incentive auction' that will lead to better wireless internet for everyone
Last week at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show, FCC head Tom Wheeler pushed broadcasters to loosen their grip on spectrum that the agency plans to auction off to give wireless internet room to grow. Now, he's laid out a draft of the rules for the auction before it takes place next year. The upcoming incentive auction will be a three stage process that, once completed, should open up more wireless spectrum for high-speed services like WiFi. WiFi operates on "unlicensed spectrum" that's open for anyone to use, and similar networks or devices could take advantage of any new frequencies the FCC opens up, while reducing interference with existing networks. That's good and bad however, since they'd fill the space in between networks, it could be harder to build up something like WiFi.
eBay attempts to lure back UK users with 20 free listings a month
Amazon might now be the defacto marketplace to buy and sell goods online in the UK, but eBay believes its "good surprise" might just lure customers back into the world of online auctions. In a bid to make things things a little easier for users to understand, eBay says that from May 13th it'll allow UK users to list up to 20 items every month completely free of charge. Listings can include any item, as long as it's not a car, and eBay continues to retain its 10 percent selling and postage fee. The company offers a similar system in the US, allowing sellers to make 50 free listings every month. With consumers now turning to Amazon to get their electrical goods, online media and groceries, eBay may be forced to expand its incentives if it wants more "A++++ seller, would buy again" reviews on its site.
Authentic spacesuits, rockets and more up for auction in NYC
Imagine what your friends will say when they notice your brand new space rocket just chillin' in the corner of your living room. Bonhams in NYC has plenty of items to make your neighbors jealous at its Space History Sale, a collection of 296 items from US and Soviet missions past. The big event celebrates Project Gemini, NASA's first unmanned test flight, which took place on April 8, 1964 (what better way to party than to sell some stuff?).
