[Barry Yoner]

Hey, Guys and especially our gracious Moderator Capt. Locknar;

This is kinda off topic but it's been a really rough week.

First, it was bad enough that my computer suffered a hardware fault a week and a half ago that may have literally destroyed the contents of my hard drive (the oldest contents that were at least 6 years old) but also important pictures that didn't exist anywhere else may be gone - including model progress shots, family pictures and a whole lot more from the last 2 years. I've got a friend working on seeing if anything can be recovered but as I write this, it doesn't look good. Yes, this means that nothing had been saved to disk or backed up - don't deny it, we've all done that - and even my plans to start cleaning up the drive and saving all those important things are shot.

More recently, I lost my best kitty buddy this Monday last. He may have suffered a stroke that caused him to lose his balance and then his ability to walk. The vet couldn't do anything for him and I had to make that choice to let him go and release him from the betrayal of his body. I only had him for 5 of his 15 years but he was happy with us and he was loved. I held him right to the last so he wouldn't die alone or with strangers...

This leads me to my question. I find I have to sell some items out my collection in order to pay the bills for the emergency vet (when I didn't know what was happening to him) and for my regular vet for the costs of the final stage in his all-too-short life, which total over $350 Cdn.

What would be a fair price for an unbuilt SFSM Stargazer/Constellation and an opened-but-unbuilt first editon Monogram Voyager?

There will very likely be other items to come, in which case I will take the continuation of this to the Trading Post so I hope that Capt. Locknar will be patient with me till then. I will look over what I have and make some decision on that in the next few days to come. In the meantime, I have no idea what the current "going" price for these are.

Please do NOT use the email in my user profile for any private responses. The password for me to access my regular email was lost in the HD crash and I haven't been able to find out what it is yet to access the server that it's on. You can use my secondary address of [email protected] or leave comments here, if our Moderator allows.

Thanks for any help in determing some fair pricing.

Message to Griffyards: My last emails to you have been failing. Something between Hotmail and AOL is causing my emails to you to bounce back as "failed delivery". You can reach me via AIM when you're not working late.

 

[Ignatz]

Sorry to hear about your cat. At least you were there for him. And I'm sorry to hear about your computer! I hope you can recover some of those files. (reminds me to get a back up drive for my computer!)

IIRC, the SFSM Constellation originally sold for around $45. A long while back, maybe a year or so, I recall one sold on Ebay for about $65-70. I would think that's a reasonable range considering it's OOP.

As for the Voyager, I've seen open, but MIB examples go for anywhere from $20-60, so $40 would be the mean price.

All the best,
Steven

 

[capt Locknar]

I'd have to agree with Ignatz on the pricing. The Stargazers I have seen and purchased myself have been in the 50-65 dollar price range ( i have 5 of them as its my favorite ship,2 built, one for extra parts, one I am redoing with a smoothie hull and one to keep). The voyager I had 2 of at one time and paid the most of 35 dollars for one. (i'd be interested in the Stargazer if you decide to sell that one)
The best thing I have discovered now for backups are the new DVD writers. You can vurtually back up an entire hard drive on 1-4 blank DVD's versus 20-30 Blank CD's. I just recently lost one of my hard drives too and am still in the process of recovering stuff off of it and reinstalling the software. What I do now is to keep a minimum 2 hard drives. My master and Slave. The master being only for windows. The slave being for all the progams and files and what have ya's. That way if the operating system ever crashes again, the slave drive is fine. Usually most things on a crashed hard drive can be recovered if done properly, and sometimes going through DOS can help or hooking up that hard drive as a slave once the new master is installed (check the jumpers on the back of the drive) and then basically just copying from the slave(original master) to the New Master. Unless its something electronic thats failed on the drive this usually works, and once everything is off there you can do a full format on the drive and its good to go again. Usually.
Hope this helps. And feel free to post what ya like, we are very open here.

 

[capt Locknar]

And I know what ya mean about the cat. Just recently my wife and I lost our 30 lb Tomcat that was about 8 years old to Kidney failure. It was really sad and the vet couldn't do anything about it. We loved him so much and we just let him continue on till he passed. My wife was heartbroken as she had the cat since a kitten and was such a perfect cat. Laid around and did nothing, occasionally we had to flip him over and dust him off, and he was great around the kid, would let the kid do anything to him he wanted. Also thought he was part dog as before we got married my wife lived with her parents and 3 dogs so the cat was more like a dat.

 

[Dave Hussey]

Very sorry to hear about your cat. A lot of dog people don't understand cats but I like both cats and dogs but I get a real charge out of cats. A few years ago my wife and I adopted a stray who showed up at our house. Big orange tom cat, gentle as a teddy bear. Kind of a "dat" too! Last fall we found ourselves in the same boat as you - there was nothing that could be done and he was getting sicker and sicker. That really is hard - they become as much a part of the family as the rest of us. And they are missed very much.

Huzz

 

[Barry Yoner]

Thanks for the responses, guys!


I appreciate the estimation of pricing for the kits. I know someone who is looking for both these kits so I will use those to see if he goes for it. So the kits are at least initially promised, Capt, but if he doesn't go for it I will let you know. I hate to let this one go, but I already have a build-up that is in dire need of fixing up (not to mention removing a horrible coat of white enamel paint that I did NOT do).

The computer: I've kicked myself every which way these last few weeks about not making sure I had irreplaceable files backed up somewhere...! Good advice about saving (master/slave HD's) and I've had someone recommend to me going the DVD-RW route. Some 26 hours later after I got the potential bad news and I still don't know if anything has or can be saved. I'm reluctant to keep pestering my friend since he has so many other demands on his time.

The drive had problems being read and the whole drive quit working on his attempt at data transfer. He wasn't going to give up on it though but that was the last news I got. Should he pull a miracle out of his bag of tricks and save what I desperately want to get back, you can be sure I will make every effort to save things immeadiately! I don't want to risk that again!

My kitty:I think that for those of us feline fanciers lucky enough, there is one cat who matches ourselves so well that they really do become an extension of ourselves in some way... Felix was like that. He was a remarkably laid-back and uncomplicated cat. His only real need (beyond the obvious ones of food, drink, litter box) was his capacity to give himself completely - he was full of kitty cuddles and love. I got him at a time in my life that was difficult both personally and professionally; in a short time he was part of the family and he wanted to be MY kitty. When things finally settled down he was perfectly content to just be with me. In return, he got all the attention he needed (even though I couldn't be home all the time). He loved nothing better than to stretch out on my chest or side and purr himself to sleep. He helped heal my pain and that's why I had the worst day on Monday when I had to let him go. I'll be all right sooner or later, it's the pain of separation that hurts so.

Capt: I appreciate you letting me vent and conduct my business here! I will give everyone here a chance to look over what I decide I can let go out of my collection to pay for Felix's final vet bills. I hope to have more info by Sunday or Monday.

 

[uss_columbia]

Sorry to hear about your computer woes and especially your cat. I lost my dog I'd had for 9 years a while back, and it was the same kind of thing: vet couldn't do anything (not for lack of expensive trying), and I spent a few hundred dollars only to lose my beloved pet anyway. Of course, I wouldn't consider not doing all I could, and I don't begrudge the vet money. People who don't have pets may not realize how much a pet becomes a member of the family and how painful the loss can be.

 

[capt Locknar]

No problem on the venting, I think I do it a bit more than an I should so most people just ignore me now lol.
I love the feel of this board and I love the people on this board who aren't afraid to talk about anything and everything. The Atmosphere here is great. I don't spend a lot on the board much right now but thats because I have so many things going on. I do try to check in at least once or twice a day. Feel free to post anything ya like as this is more like a bar than a modeling board lol.