It's hard to imagine old electronics being worth anything what with them being obsolete and all, but certain items can bring in a staggering amount of cash. Keyboard bundled with modern day PCs are good enough to get the job done so most aren't aware of the wide array of options available to them. Most vintage keyboards are referred to as "mechanical" because each key has a mechanical switch of its own responsible for its input. There are a variety of different switches, most of which are no longer produced. The infamous IBM Model M uses what's known as a buckling spring, and is probably the noisiest of them all, but extremely comfortable and lasts for years, and individual springs can be easily replaced. Keyboards bundled with today's computers use membrane and/or rubber dome to detect key presses. These don't last nearly as long and lack the distinct tactile feeling of a good mechanical keyboard. Once you try one, there's no going back.
Upon visiting a local flea market for the first time, I stumbled upon a vendor's stash of dozens of old keyboards. I passed them by initially, but on my second time around the building I decided to give them a look. I'd recently become aware of mechanical keyboards and knew there was potentially some money to be made. I found one with an integrated track ball and mouse buttons, the ULTRA Kb-599. I looked it up on my phone and found a single listing at $110. The guy wanted $5 a piece, so that was a risk I was willing to take. I started digging around for other boards, pressing buttons as I did so to feel for the mechanicals and found a Model M that was used in a banking firm with special keycaps (I've been offered $20 for just 2 of them), as well as a Leading Edge keyboard, which I went on to sell, untested, for $100, netting $65 profit, which paid for these 3 and the ones acquired on my next trip pictured above.
At this point I thought I'd found them all, so I decided to head home. I returned the following week to source more inventory and, with a new wealth of keyboard knowledge thanks to /r/mechanicalkeyboards, decided to give them a more thorough look. I ended up finding another 5 mechanicals, as well as a wirless IBM PCJr chiclet keyboard in great shape with the original box. Two of them are Model M2s, a revision on the popular Model M, which still uses buckling springs but is comparatively cheap feeling (though I like it). These are commonly known to have capacitors that dry out after a while, causing the scroll and caps lock LEDs to lock and none of the keys to register. For a few bucks and a little soldering it's an easy fix, but I've decided to list them for parts. If I'm lucky I'll make 10 bucks profit on those, but the real money's in the PC-122 terminal keyboard. This uses "space invader" or "angry bear" switches, called so due to their resemblance to a face, and make a soft click when depressed. They're no longer produced which makes these vintage board especially sought after by collectors and typists alike. One recently sold for $120, and I'm hoping to get a little more out of mine, which appears as if it could have been unused due to the plastic on the cord. I also found an Acer 6011 with clicky Alps switches and another Model M.
The seller informed me that there was another guy who picked up a bunch of boards just a day before my first trip, which makes me wonder how many hundreds of dollars I may have missed out on, but one really can't complain with a find like this. I've already profited $15 on this $50 investment. This is my biggest flip so far for the investment, and is the first time I've experienced the adrenaline rush that accompanies a great find. I think I'll take a trip to the local dump's electronics container in the near future to see what I can find.
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