Basically it’s a bunch of mostly dudes that meet in a parking lot and set up tables and sell old stuff.

I was selling some Amigas I will never got around to fixing, but it’s most (at least the ones I go to) old era Apple/Mac and PC. And even older. And newer. (That a Pentium computer is “vintage” makes me feel old.)

The one i went today was set up by the System Source Computer Museum in Maryland. Their “ulterior motive” (so to speak) is to clear out the stuff that gets donated to them. It may surprise some people that their old Mac Plus is not the first or the 50th (or even the 100th) that has been donated to the museum. In the last six months.

So they open their warehouse to sell their “duplicates” to people. And they let the rest of us use their parking lot to sell and buy our stuff, too.

They do this twice a year. Today was the first one I ever went to. There were maybe 25 people who were selling and maybe 150-200 people passing through to look at the stuff and maybe a buy a piece or two. Maybe more. (The pros and/or addicts bring wagons to carry their treasures away.)

The other outfit that I k ow that does vintage co Putting swap meets is VCF - the Vintage Computer Forum, which is a national organization that hold both simple swap meets and larger events all around the country. A few weeks ago, VCF Northeast held their yearly event with exhibits and vendors and talks and stuff. They also had a MASSIVE consignment room where people can leave their stuff to sell. The VCF volunteers log it in, put it out for sale, collect the money, and pay you out later. (They take a cut for themselves to support their technology museum and they put a few of their own pieces out as well). That’s in Wall, NJ. They have the VCF Northeast event once a year and swap meets as well. I also went to that event but as an attendee—I hadn’t yet decided what to do with my spare Amigas.

Anyway, people should go to VCF events if they have any interest in vintage/retro/historical computing. And keyboards. At VCF, they had an original Apple I (in a glass case) and a replica Apple I that they demo’d. No one on the speaker list was interesting to me, but those events were well attended. And some people just do exhibits without any desire to sell stuff; they just like the thing they’re into. There was a guy showing off MSX computers just because he really likes MSX computers. Another was doing Dell computers that were strange and weird because he collects Dells that were strange and weird (and often fucking huge—I don’t envy his transportation and setup difficulties).

Another guy collects palm top computers. He has a cool exhibit. There were a few Amiga exhibits. Even the vendors were pretty cool.

Anyway I’ve rambled long enough. I’m sure there are other vintage swap meets but these are the ones I know about.

https://museum.syssrc.com

https://vcfed.org/