What obscure electronic item do you collect / obsess with?

Old Soviet scientific calculators, including a desk model that runs off AC. The ones I collect use "reverse Polish notation" to enter numbers and operands like most old Hewlett-Packard calcs, but these are not direct copies of any HP model. Examples: MK-52, MK-56, MK-61, built by various factories under the Elektronika name. These were built like tanks and had old-school circuit boards with replaceable components. They were built in the 1980s–early 1990s.

Okay, I'm weird. These are cheaper than collecting old HPs, though. :D Lots of people have that fetish (vintage HPs), but it's too rich for my blood. I have some HPs, though, which I bought new at the time. The HP 50G was the last of the programmable RPN line, and it went out of production in 2015.
 
ekrampitzjr said:
Old Soviet scientific calculators, including a desk model that runs off AC. The ones I collect use "reverse Polish notation" to enter numbers and operands like most old Hewlett-Packard calcs, but these are not direct copies of any HP model. Examples: MK-52, MK-56, MK-61, built by various factories under the Elektronika name. These were built like tanks and had old-school circuit boards with replaceable components. They were built in the 1980s–early 1990s.

Okay, I'm weird. These are cheaper than collecting old HPs, though. :D Lots of people have that fetish (vintage HPs), but it's too rich for my blood. I have some HPs, though, which I bought new at the time. The HP 50G was the last of the programmable RPN line, and it went out of production in 2015.
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Yeah, I'm still a fan of RPN. I use an RPN calculator on my phone though, the HP32Sii I had since college broke one day and I replaced it with an HP 33S. Now that one broke so no more handy RPN calculators for me aside from the app on my phone.
 
I collect core memory, I like to build frames for the circuit boards to display them.
My Dad collects old tube radios and restores them to function. He's probably got 30. I often end up refinishing or rebuilding any damaged cases for him.
 
Turntables, records of every possible description and genre (especially mid-century modern instrumental/exotic), portable SW and AM radios, electric basses of any type...and books. Lots of books. Luckily, my wife is wired in a similar fashion -- she collects Sears, Montgomery Ward and Penneys catalogs from the 1950s through the 1970s.

(Okay, catalogs aren't "electronic", I know, but...yeah.)
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I don't collect calculators but I have more than a few of them. I bought an HP33C in 1980 when I was working summers in their model shop. It was retired for a while until I found an ebay seller in the UK that was assembling rechargeable battery packs for HP calculators. It's the go-to that sits on my desk. There's an HP11C buried under the stuff on the desk too.

Away from my desk, I use the RealCalc app in RPN mode on my phone.

I've always had a preference for RPN.

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paulo57509 said:
I don't collect calculators but I have more than a few of them. I bought an HP33C in 1980 when I was working summers in their model shop. It was retired for a while until I found an ebay seller in the UK that was assembling rechargeable battery packs for HP calculators. It's the go-to that sits on my desk. There's an HP11C buried under the stuff on the desk too.

Away from my desk, I use the RealCalc app in RPN mode on my phone.

I've always had a preference for RPN.

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I recently found a new HP11 for way less than the 32 - it just does not do engineering formulas as well … So went back hunting …
Oh, Gave away a mint 48SX - too big n complicated …
 
My electronic collection is actually electronic components such as diodes, transistors, capacitors, resistors, transformers, relays, wire wrap wire, duel in line 1/10 inch sockets, 1/10 inch perf boards, solder, low wattage soldering pencils, butane powered soldering pencils, soldering gun, many spools of different color wire in different gauges, meters, digital storage oscilloscope, leads for meters and oscilloscope, electric tape, wire ties, and anything else I come across that I can save to use as components in circuits that I design.
 
Not sure how much this falls into the electronics category, but I do love old cameras-both collecting them and using them. Of course some that I use, like my Hasselblad 500C, are totally free of anything electrical. Others, like the Nikon F and F2, can have battery powered light meters but otherwise are free of electrical stuff. The F2sb and F2AS(essentially the same light meter, but differ in how they couple to the lens) have decently complicated for the time meters.

A lot of 70s and 80s cameras have some primitive electronics, and sometimes they can be a disaster. I enjoy using some, and stay away from others. A lot of people love the Nikon F3, which has aperture priority auto exposure, a "high tech" tiny LCD in the viewfinder that I hate, and electronically timed shutter speeds. On the other hand, I love Canon's New F-1(sometimes called the F-1N, but I avoid that since it's a totally different camera from the original F-1 and there's an "update" original F-1 variant usually called the F-1n) that has about the same level of electronic sophistication as the F3 but uses a bright, clear match needle type meter readout that conveys a lot more information than the little F3 LCD and is easier to read, especially in low light(without needing 3 hands to activate the illumination-you can set it to come on with a half press of the shutter, and it actually lights up bright). Even better, the shutter on the New F-1 is fully mechanical from 1/90 to 1/2000(which does introduce problems on one that's not been serviced recently, but I've also had F3 shutters not in spec despite being electronically timed) and if you find yourself with a dead battery, you just take the battery out and have access to all of these speeds. The F3 just has a single 1/80 "just in case" mechanical speed.

Some of the other 70s and 80s electronic cameras can be reliability nightmares, although some are good. The Canon AE-1 had the worlds best selling camera title for a LONG time, and for good reason. Most of them still work fine, although the Canon A-series cameras all have their quirks(and a mirror damper that likes to go dry and make a distinctive "squeal"). As a side note, if you are a Mac user, the sound effect when taking a screen shot(command+shift+3 or command+shift+4) is actually a recording of an AE-1. Supposedly the person who wrote that portion of the software just grabbed his AE-1 off the shelf in his home office and recorded it for the sound effect in the software back whenever grab.app was introduced in System 6 or whenever it was. My first good camera was a Canon A-1, which I used a whole lot, but it's showing its age and the viewfinder LED readouts quit working a while back-I've recently ended up with two additional ones that fortunately work fine.

I bought a Nikon FA after seeing one popular photo blogger(whose initials are KR-some of you may know who I'm talking about) rave about how wonderful they are. Mine "burned" me when I shot a roll of slide film in it(~5 years ago, so not as expensive as now, but not cheap then either) and I ended up with a couple of randomly blank frames. Come to find out, this is a known issue with these cameras. I've since bought another that seems to work, but I'm also afraid to risk good film in it.

I've ended up with quite a collection of early Nikon and Nikon-mount DSLRs as well. I actually have several of the Kodak-Nikon cameras, including a few of the DCS 400 series cameras(none work, although I think one is fixable if I ever get the time...), a wondeful but huge and clunky DCS 760, and one each of the last two Kodak DSLRs-the DCS 14/n and the SLR/n. I have the full range of Fujifilm-Nikon cameras also, but only ever really mess with the S5, which was the best of the bunch. Nikon actually sold Fuji D200 bodies that they stuffed their sensors and electronics into, rather than building on the N80(S3) or N65(S1 and S2). It took me a while to find a working Nikon D1 and D1H, although I have one working D1H and several working D1s now(as well as a D1X). I also have piles of dead D1s and D1Hs that I really should clear out, as I don't see myself fixing them...
 
Anything amateur radio related, transceivers, receivers, transmitters, amplifiers. This includes equipment made specifically for amateur radio, marine and military radio, and broadcast radio. It extends into microphones and equalizers and antennas. I even use a prop pitch motor from a B-17 to turn my antenna.

"K1XV" is my Federal Communications Commission assigned amateur radio license and call sign.
 
Some amateur radio gear, but only solid state, preferably analog (have a chance at repair!). When I have money to burn I do like buying qrp radios to build—but keep collecting parts with the dream of building from scratch my own. Someday…

During the pandemic I bought way too much on evil bay, Arduino bits and boards, parts and whatnot. Starting to sort and label boxes and inventory it.
 
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