More micros that you could shake a stick at came under the hammer in London last week but very few went for a song. With dismal regularity the bids at Crocket Computer Auctions inaugural auction failed to reach the reserved price.

Three hundred lots of new and used micros, peripherals and software were assembled for the auction, which is planned to be the first of a series. There were piles of ZX81s, packaged Vic 20s, Spectrums long decanted and in some cases chipless, a brace of BBCs, and proud representatives of the business market - an IBM PC, a Macintosh, a Kaypro 10 and even an Apple IIc.

If you weren't there you missed the chance of a brand new Mac for £800, a Lynx for £20, and a BBC with DFS for £20, and a BBC with DFS for £310 among others. But more were withdrawn than were sold as sluggish bidding cast a pall on the proceedings.

At first there'd been an air of expectancy. "We're here to sell them, not stock them," said the auctioneer; but he added guardedly: "Not for pennies and ha'pennies, of course." As the bidding got under way and his pleas for "sensible bids, ladies and gentlemen" became more frequent, there was a muttering from the back of the hall: "It's a rub-out, a waste of time."

Robert Nicklin, general manager of Crockers, said afterwards: "It takes two to make an auction. A lot of people (that's a lot as in a crowd, not an item to be auctioned) seemed frightened about bidding." But the auction ran its course, and eventually was sufficiently successful for Crockers to plan another for late October.

The stock, he said, was largely private entries from individuals. Several items were brand new, but those that weren't had been examined by Crockers technicians. An engineer's report on a couple of Spectrums said: "Machine at fault - chips missing" but there sold, all the same.

For the record: the Macintosh was unsold, the PC failed to reach its reserve price, £210 wasn't enough to buy an Epson MX100, but £30 would have bought you a Sord M5, £15 a Casio PB100, £190 a BBC, and £310 a BBC with DFS.