A few months ago on TikTok, the iPod shuffle, Apple’s little music player is no longer on the market, thanks to a girl who found it at home, wondered what it was, and used it as a hair clip. It is not an isolated case. Teen chat is filled with videos of vintage gadgets, from phones to game consoles, collected under the hashtag #retrotech. Perhaps young people are increasingly feeling the theme of environment and recycling, technology may now be burning everything fast, and imitation also in technology is surely now a unifying trend. So much so that an English site has listed famous gadgets worth a fortune, up to $150,000, treasure that can be hidden in our homes, unused or forgotten in the attic.
For example, the Polaroid instant camera, made famous by Andy Warhol, in the OneStep version in the 1970s was made of only six copies: today it is worth $150,000. The IBM Computer, a pioneer in personal computing that often appears in collectors’ collections, is now valued at $4,600. It’s the IBM 5150 that was launched in 1981 and then marketed for $1,500. To make accounts one of the UK’s largest independent retailer of consumer electronics, Ebuyer, who has highlighted in research the potential current cost of these objects taking into account inflation, with special reference to some limited editions. Music lovers of a certain generation cannot forget the “Walkman”, which was designed for listening to audio tapes on the go with headphones, before iPod and smartphones for downloading songs. A revolution thanks to Sony that launched this technology gadget in the late 1970s: Today according to Ebuyer, the most expensive collector’s item is the Signature Series Walkman Digital Music Player, valued at more than $3,000. Another historical gadget for those of us who were teens in the ’90s is Nintendo’s Game Boy, a white-brick-like gaming console, estimated to sell at 200 million units. Well, one of the rarest editions, the Pokomon Game Boy Advance SP Charizard Edition, in perfect condition can fetch up to $15,000. Still in the gaming field, Sony Playstation is a ’90s era, also designed for adults and families.
Some collectors have spent up to $9,000 to get one of a hundred copies of the “PlayStation 1-10 Million Edition”, which was created to celebrate the 10 million units sold worldwide. An honorable mention in the list, not so much for current value but because it is a piece of history, goes to Nokia 3310, a cult and resistant phone, where you can play endless Snake games. In the 2000s it sold for $160, but this classic GSM-era model didn’t hold its value, and for Ebuyer it can easily be found at prices under 50 euros.
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