iMac G3 Now Expensive To Buy In 2011 But Why?

It's as simple as different sellers have different opinions of what things are worth. It's like asking us why 2 people think differently.

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It's the same with anything, as years go by more break and they get harder and harder to find.

MAC MAN JW said:

i get what you mean,but why are the buyers paying the asking price when they wear not 1 year ago? are imac g3s becomeing hard to find or Collectible???

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Basically anything made by Apple with their logo is worth more than what most feel it's worth. $60-70 certainly isn't unheard of now for an iMac G3.

The question when buying older Macs is how much is it worth to you. At the same time you still need to pick limits for what you're looking for. Collectors will always pay more than someone who just needs a really cheap Mac.

some like myself love the iMac G3 more then any other Mac
i own now 5 of them ..soon 6

and i have to say these little iMac g3 are not just computers , like my eMac's (own 5 of them too)
they are like children to me , and they are a important part of apples history
and with more people even switchers now want to know how it was in those days to own a Mac , they buy iMac G3's , but as really prestine examples are getting rare now the prices will creep up slowly1, 2 or 3 years ago nobody did want them apart from some buying for their kids , but now many get told leave it they are not even able to surf the web , b****** , they are as good as any computer really , and with html5 i have not even problem watching youtube on my 600/700mhz ones

MacHamster68 said:

...i own now 5 of them ..soon 6 ...
...like my eMac's (own 5 of them too)...

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Just out of sheer curiosity: what the hell do you do with all of them? I'm guessing you're not churning out bitcoin hashes or x264 encodes on them =P

Not saying they're useless, I'm just curious what you'd do with all 10 of them.

Collectors item.. it is like why do you collect toy cars for?

AdrianK said:

Just out of sheer curiosity: what the hell do you do with all of them? I'm guessing you're not churning out bitcoin hashes or x264 encodes on them =P

Not saying they're useless, I'm just curious what you'd do with all 10 of them.

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not h264 , but i have ripped even dvd-to avi's (divx) on them
other then that i do use them as normal computers , they still work perfectly and i have so far no trouble at all opening websites sending emails write letters on office 2004 , do some spreadsheets , they are so reliable , and for some who say you cannot multitaks with them because they are to slow , whats the problem thats why i have many of them , thats multitasking on a new level as all are connected with each other with apple talk ..my eMac's and my PowerMac's (G4/G5) too

A Few Reasons:

Some of the reasons could be the economy today. People's income... inflation... etc. and the price of EVERYTHING is going up, including used computers. People aren't selling as much in their businesses forcing, (and also "forcing") the business owners to raise prices so they can pay their bills. (some of them make this up, and still make lots of profict)

also, how can you resist all the nice colors available???? Apple has not done anything in lots of colors for many years. And they are made out of thick plastic... not as thick as my GE Carry Cool (an entirely plastic air conditioner) , but thick enough to have a carrying handle, also made of plastic... ...but not thick enough to break after a while. Some imacs, ESPECIALLY the Tray Loading CD ... those types of imacs are very difficult to open up and upgrade RAM, etc. and sometimes the plastic can break if you are not careful.

What uses do I get out of my three imacs? Why have I not bought more????

I have not bought more, because right now I do not have enough space for desktop computers. I love laptops, and other things that are space saving and energy saving. I try to get a used non-apple x86, with intel processors not amd. I am not sure how much better AMD is, but the point is, I turn on the laptop and it gets HOT in minutes!! I imagine that any used Intel laptop is going to have significant hardware damage. While at the same time, I have PowerBooks, which are not imacs, but...they are still PowerPC... and they do not get hot!! I have not shut my PowerBook off since I got it!! I have restarted it, but the point is...I leave it on all the time... and it has not burned up yet.

If I tried that with an Intel... lol.

also... slot loading imacs do not have fans in them. They do get hot, but that is because they are a CRT monitor with no fans.

any G3 is also worthwhile to any people that love Mac OS 9.2.2 ...you can upgrade some of the computers to up to 1GB of RAM, which is very useful for Mac OS 9.2.2 People argue that you can't do much on Mac OS 9.2.2 anymore, and whatever you can do, will be slow.

Actually I tried doing things on Mac OS X, and also Windows Vista...with IE (I know there are other browsers...but IE is microsoft's browser) were VERY slow... usually mac os 9.2.2's finder is much faster. If Classilla does not function correctly, ... IE does not either. "Internet Explorer Cannot Open The Internet Site. Operation Aborted".

MAC MAN JW said:

... but i think the most hard to find ones are the Slot Loading Fruit colors being i only seen 2 in the past Year on ebay. ...

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Interesting. Here in Germany snow iMacs (not the eMac G4s) go for 60-100EUR (EUR!). Fruit ones are not so hard to find (20-40EUR).
The most you find are 350MHz blueberry ones, going for 15-30EUR. Followed by indigo ones 40EUR. Graphite ones do not come often, but go for 15EUR).
Ruby ones (20-40EUR) are hard to find, but still more often than the sage iMacs (60-120EUR). I saw 2 sage in the last 3-4 years.

If I had space, I would collect a sage one and a tangerine one... well, ok, perhaps I would collect every colour of them ;-)
But from a realistic standpoint, I would add a sage one to my allready existing limegreen (my first Mac, bought used 1 year after its "birth" ).
I would also buy a bondi blue Rev. A, and mod it with PC innards + TFT inside, to build a nice looking gaming machine and for guests to use, who say, they do not know how to operate with Macs (which I can't understand) and to have the very first model, but without letting it stay unused (so better turn in a PC gaming machine, though I do only game 2 times a year on Win-PCs of others - on my Macs I play Nanosaur I+II or Bugdom, from time to time, haha.

btw. I am using my lime iMac as a digital "VCR", hooked to the sat-receiver or to digitalize VCR-tapes. I use it in connection with Canopus ADVC-300, which does not use the iMacs CPU. Of course, I do not use it for converting the files, later, that would be to slow...

I'd like to have a flower power one.

I'm still amazed that I can still boot up my 333mhz imac after all these years. And it still has the original 6gb hard drive.

Yes, true, they are working after all this years, with no parts changed. This is one of the too reasons, why I do hestitate to upgrade my lime DV 400MHz. I'd like to see how long this 11 year old will last even longer. The other reason is that it would not be original, if I did changes to it.
I have a 500MHz motherboard and some 7200rpm 120GB drives, with 8MB cache laying arround (vs 10GB, 4200rpm, 2MB original).
The Mobo would not only give me more processing power, it would have ATA-66 (instead of 33) and better graphics and working speakers.
The speakers are the only thing that stopped working, I solved this about 7 years ago by using an imic-USB-interface.

I picked up an iMac DV SE (Graphite, 600MHz G3) on eBay a few months back for £20, a 1.25GHz eMac for £30, an iSub for £20, a blueberry 15" Apple Studio Display (TFT) for £15 and a graphite one for £9.99. There isn't much retromac in eBay UK, but if you look hard enough and are careful/clever with your bidding you can still find bargains



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