Rare Apples, eBay, Goodwill

[William Layer]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 18:23:16 -0500
Dave Dunfield <dave04a at dunfield.com> wrote:

> I personally take Ebay prices with a big grain of salt --- In looking for the
> Black Apple you mentioned, I noticed a "@@LOOK@@ ***RARE*** Original Macintosh
> 128" up to $250 ... (I bought a near-mint Mac (128) with a nice carry bag,
> external floppy drive and other goodies for $19 (Cdn) at a local goodwill shop
> a couple of months back).

Just a few random comments:

 - 'Rare' Mac128.. The original 128K Mac is the unit that put Macintosh on the map, and tho I haven't got production numbers handy, it's clear that a goodly number of these were made. That said, it is the *first* one, and from a collecting standpoint, is a good piece to have.

 - What's rarer, is to find a 128 that is un-tampered. Vast portions of the 128s eventually got a 512 or 512e motherboard (FatMac) - others just got the 512/512e PROMs which enabled them to work with additional software, and to boot directly from the Mac Serial Hard Disk, which is itself much rarer than the 128. So, I'd tend to think that an untampered 128, with no scars from ham-fisted 'cracking' and a serial hard drive is fairly 'rare'. Devils in the details, as usual.

 - About 'Mac Crackers'; there is some confusion here. Some outlets sell a long Torx driver as a 'Mac Cracker', and while you do need this tool to open the case, this is not a Mac cracker. The real 'Cracker' is a little tool not unlike a sping-loaded woodworking clamp which is used to seperate the case halves without leaving ugly scars from prying. I've always used a wood clamp.

 - While eBay prices are to be taken as a general mix of legtimacy, ignorance, greed, stupidity and outright scamming, Goodwill prices aren't that much more 'helpful' either. Unless they have a good 'picker' doing the pricing, Goodwill and their ilk have a mission to sell old junk for the cheap. We've all had impossibly lucky finds at these places..

 - My favorite eBay canard re: Macs is the "I opened it up to have a look, and it's SIGNED on the back cover!!!!". Of course, they are all signed up until the Classic era (I think the sigs went away with the new case, but I could be wrong).

Like I said, random. 

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   -. William W. Layer .- -. St. Paul, MN USA .-
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-. Cheif bottlewasher, Atma-Sphere Music Systems .-
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