The History of Computing Auctioned at Christie's 177
Larry Groebe writes "The most amazing unified collection of books, papers, and similar material on the history of computing is about to go on sale at Christie's auction house. Want a signed copy of 'Rossum's Universal Robots?' Original papers on the Eniac? Alan Turning's original proof of universal computability? Letters from Charles Babbage himself? It's in there, to anyone with (a whole lot of) money. Check out the estimated price on the 1974 journal article by Vinton Cerf describing IP addressing. It's increased in value in the past 30 years...just a bit."
Historical Documents Deserve A Prominent Place. (Score:5, Insightful)
estimated bids are ridiculous (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:estimated bids are ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because you don't have the money doesn't mean quite a few people don't. I would expect historically interesting documents to fetch a decent price. Someone will want them, hopefully for a museum (A tech museum somewhere) - I could see Bill J, Scott M, Bill G, Steve J. putting bids on documents that particularly inspired them.
Intrigued, but annoyed (Score:5, Insightful)
...Which brings me to the annoyance factor. This collection is going to be scattered to the four winds. Looking at some of the pre-auction estimates, no one person, and very few institutions, will have the scratch that it would take to keep the collection together. Taken seperately, each of these items has a historical context, but taken together, they chart the idealistic, scientific, and technological foundations of the Internet.
Auctioning the library off in such a piecemeal fashion just seems wrong, IMNSHO.
Re:One man's trash... (Score:3, Insightful)
and i'm going out on a limb here
christie's employs people with experience in correctly valuing antiques and memorabilia. gee, i wonder who i should trust -- the experts, with years of proven experience in the field, or an anonymous coward?
yawn.
Re:Intrigued, but annoyed (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you mean - I know people that this would be chump change for (ever go on a drinking spree with someone with more money than sense and get a sip of whiskey out of a multi-thousand dollar bottle ?)
Bill G easily has this kind of money - heck the brothers google do as well.
I could see Andy B from Sun, Steve Jobs from Apple, and maybe the Woz kicking out this kind of money if it were important enough to them.
Now I agree, I would like to see a collection like this kept together - however the owners of the property in question, value its worth much more than the collection as a whole... and frankly selling it off piecemeal like this will probably raise the price (a LOT of people would pay 2000-3000 for their favorite historical book - not many people could pay 1/2M for the whole thing). Frankly they own it and have the right to do what ever they want with it.
How about a benefactor? (Score:5, Insightful)
ciao,
-X
Re:Historical Documents Deserve A Prominent Place. (Score:1, Insightful)
I hope they go to whoever bids the most that is why they call it an "auction".
Private collectors are usually the best people to assemble and conserve such things-where do you think the libraries and museums get them?
Re:Dang! (Score:1, Insightful)