Thread: Give it away
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Old February 4th 17, 07:50 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris.B[_3_]
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Default Give it away

On Saturday, 4 February 2017 00:13:42 UTC+1, RichA wrote:
On Thursday, 2 February 2017 19:51:17 UTC-5, palsing wrote:
On Thursday, February 2, 2017 at 4:21:03 PM UTC-8, RichA wrote:
On Tuesday, 31 January 2017 20:28:01 UTC-5, BogeyOne wrote:
Are you "telescoped out?" The symptom of which would be not having had
the urge to get under the night sky with your scope for a long time
(like years), then do something good with the expensive dust gatherer.
Donate it to a school or give it to a young relative. The latter is what
I plan on doing with my mid-sized dobsonian. I have a 21 year old
grandson who will welcome it as soon as I can transport it a hundred
miles up the road to him.


Go a public star party. Find someone there really interested without a scope, give it to them.


Many local astronomy clubs have a "loaner" program, where they loan out telescopes to people who think they 'might' be interested in the hobby but don't want to invest too much initially until they know just what type, and what size, of telescope they might want, or if they even want one at all! Donating your unwanted telescope to such an entity would ensure that it got occasionally used, as a teaching instrument.


Got to be better than some well-intentioned but misguided bequests. One estate gave a huge quantity of historical microscopes to a university in Toronto, where they sat in storage for 10 years. Then they dumped them on the open market.


I can't see the problem with that. At least they had a chance of redistribution.

The accumulation of many physical items is a perennial problem.
Most museums have vast collections in storage which never see the light of day.
Collectors gather items obsessively until they grow old or sick.
Leaving behind what many see as mere hoards of junk or even scrap.
Surviving families are rarely equipped to place any value on a specialized collection.

At least these days there is a global means of disposal via the internet.
Specialist online forums can be helpful here if their existence is known.
In former times a [historically valuable] collection might appear at a local auction or estate sale.
With almost no publicity few other avid collectors would know of the contents or significance.
A local auction is unlikely to have expertise in depth nor widespread publicity.
There is still the problem of global re-distribution of any collection.
Which can easily multiply the cost of ownership of a single desirable item.
It's no wonder stamps are popular! ;-)