1. If you want to find out how much a computer may be worth, why not check out the EBAY site (just enter EBAY into the address window). Search for the name of the computer, remembering to ask the search engine to check past auctions, and you might get lucky. I found that one of my computers, the Hyperion, sold for about 200 Yankee dollars. Not bad for a $2.99 Canadian investment!
2. If you are out and about looking for things to collect and there is no hardware available, look for manuals, software, peripherals, etc. There seems to be lots of hardware available but not much information on how the hardware works. Software is disappearing very quickly and in the future, maybe the smart money will be in the software and manuals.
3. I have yet to find a computer that doesn't work, or at least doesn't work a bit. I am continually astounded that these old relics still generally do what they were made to do. Sometimes some tweaking is necessary, a loose plug or a bad connection somewhere has to be fixed, but overall these things are astounding in their durabiity.
4. Choose a genre of computers and stick to them. If you like Apples, stick to Apples. That way you can concentrate your efforts and time into one stream of computers and be a fountain of knowledge on them when the time comes for you to spout. Twenty years from now, you will be considered a sage in the computer collecting world.
5. Don't be afraid to turn down something that is too expensive. If you do some research you will know which computers are available in vast quantities and which ones aren't. In Canada we have lots of Apple clones, in the States they just don't exist. So guess which ones I am collecting? Right, clones. Lots of them. But I don't pay too much for something, unless I know it is rare. If you are patient and keep right on looking, you will surely come across another of the same at a lower price. At least if you are in a major metro area. Case in point: The local ValuVillage (a local charity fundraising store) had a PCjr for the whopping price of $199.00. A few weeks later, I came across a PCjr with lots of software and cables etc. for ten bucks at a garage sale....and the owner thought he had taken me for a ride at that price! The thing works like a charm.
6. The Web is an amazing resource for info on old computers if you don't already know that. Figure out how to use a search engine and you will be surprised at how much knowledge you can collect from just a few searches. People all over the world are saving computers from the garbage heap, my latest letter was from Brazil, and people everywhere are putting up information on these relics.