Is there a market for a G3?

[pilkenton]

I have an old blue G3 that was my first Mac. It works fine. I have the original keyboard and mouse. I've held onto it for sentimental reasons, but now we're moving out of state, and I have no room to take it. I've had it on Craig's list for two months now with no interest. I started the price at $50 obo, and have gone down on the price every couple of days. For the last two weeks it's been advertised for $20 obo. Still no calls. Would I be better off scrapping it? I know if I took it apart there would be some copper or something else I could salvage.

[Hrududu]

Unfortunately, the G3 has pretty much bottomed out in value. The G4 has too by this point. A G3 tower like yours has been about a $10 machine for about 3 years now and really I don't know if it'll ever go back up. They were not made long, but there are TONS of them out there. If you really don't want it anymore, then scrapping it really is your best bet at this point.

[Lord Blackadder]

I wouldn't scrap it yet. Try trading it to someone local for something you want - perhaps another old Mac or a hard drive or some such. But if that fails, you should probably just find the nearest recycling center and drop it off.

Its barter value to another Mac enthusiast is probably higher than its cash value. Hrududu's valuation is about right though - you'd be lucky to find anyone willing to pay $20 for a G3 tower anymore, especially since it will cost more to ship somewhere than it's worth.

The Intel transition and Apple's phased abandonment of support for PPC machines has seen the bottom drop out of PPC Mac values. Only the laptops are really worth anything, and even those are cheap these days.

[pilkenton]

Thanks for the responses.

[WardC]

Originally Posted by Lord Blackadder

The Intel transition and Apple's phased abandonment of support for PPC machines has seen the bottom drop out of PPC Mac values. Only the laptops are really worth anything, and even those are cheap these days.

Yes, this is so true. The Blue and White G3 towers are really, really great for running Mac OS 8.6 and OS 9 but are quite pitiful running Mac OS X. None of the available web browsers for Classic Mac OS are really capable of rendering the modern JavaScript and CSS used on most websites, that is why they look funky under something like IE 5.2. The machine is still good for playing older Mac games like Unreal or Quake III, and doing anything with Mac Classic like running Photoshop version 5-7 or Bryce for 3D rendering. It is a very solid machine, I had one myself for a few years before I sold mine and got the G4 tower. I never had any crashes or hardware failures on that machine, it was rock solid. Too bad most people don't see the use in them anymore, they take up space and cannot do FaceBook or YouTube, so people think they are useless. That is the general theory I have.

Interesting enough, some of the older Macs like the IIfx, the Quadra 840av, and the Quadra 605 have a following and bring in good money on eBay whenever they are offered. They are Powerful 68k machines and are rare because they were not mass-produced in high numbers.

They don't sell well on eBay. Your best luck would be either keeping it or donating it to Goodwill. Possibly it can be used in a retirement home for simple games or educational programs, or something of that sort.

Good luck.

[MacTech68]

As a going concern, I'll agree the G3 B&W is a hard sell.

It's a shame, since they were a new "Open Minded" case design (as Apple called it). The original version was a dog. Bad ATA chip and a poorly designed hard drive mounting (both later revised and fixed). Sadly, they never had firewire boot which kind of prevents a lot of fun.

Before you junk it, check what RAM is installed and any PCI cards.

If you have any sticks of 512MB, they are worth in the realms of US$20 each.

SCSI cards and drives are worth a little more than the IDE drives on the standard model.

Also, check what CPU it's running. Anything faster than a 400Mhz G3 might also be worth grabbing. Third party upgrade CPUs did appear for these. There were even G4 CPU upgrades.

At least, grabbing these components take up much less space, the rest you can drop off to your local recycling center.

[pilkenton]

I lowered the price to $15 dollars and got a hit. This lady wanted it for her son. She lives about 35 miles from me...on the other side of Chicago from me. I explained to her what exactly what I had. I asked her if it would be worth spending $20 on gas, $5 on tolls, and 3-4 hours driving through Chicago, for a $15 computer. She thanked me for my honesty and agreed it wasn't worth the trip. I think I'll strip it down and scrap it.

[Lil Chillbil]

I just got a g3 tower with cinema display mouse and keyboard for free.

and I think that you should first update the software to the best you can put on it. Remember its all about marketing. Another thing throw in something stuipid and people will be more willing to pay money for it.

talk tech which confuses people especialy if they are women. and that makes them think that its ALL THAT. but anyway that just my opinnion.

[Operation-Rat]

Originally Posted by pilkenton

I lowered the price to $15 dollars and got a hit. This lady wanted it for her son. She lives about 35 miles from me...on the other side of Chicago from me. I explained to her what exactly what I had. I asked her if it would be worth spending $20 on gas, $5 on tolls, and 3-4 hours driving through Chicago, for a $15 computer. She thanked me for my honesty and agreed it wasn't worth the trip. I think I'll strip it down and scrap it.

I live in Wheaton kinda near Chicago. If you still have it, I have $10 for it! I need a mac to burn cds for my older macs. Sometimes it's difficult to burn certain mac cds with PCs. At least I wouldn't gut it ! Let me know!

[MacTech68]

Originally Posted by Operation-Rat

I live in Wheaton kinda near Chicago. If you still have it, I have $10 for it! I need a mac to burn cds for my older macs. Sometimes it's difficult to burn certain mac cds with PCs. At least I wouldn't gut it ! Let me know!

I hate to rain on the OP's parade but many later burners won't be bootable in the G3 B&W. I was never able to work out why, despite checking UDMA specs, block sizes and using a Rev2 logic board. Most will burn ok, but booting from CD starts fine and then freezes. Repeatable on entirely different hardware of the same model.

Earlier burners like Sony CRX-180E, 160E & 140E works fine.

If you want to burn bootable disks, they will work with later burners but you'll need to test them in something else.

Just a heads up, though I'm jumping the gun a little, since you may have a firewire burner or the OP may have a burner fitted already, or you might not intend to burn bootable OS disks.

[Arkious]

you could always strip it and convert it to a PC case, that way you can use the original keyboard mouse etc and you havent had to scrap it.

id love to find a one of these to do that mod too here in the UK.

either a hackintosh or just as a case lol

[phySi0]

Originally Posted by WardC

The Blue and White G3 towers are really, really great for running Mac OS 8.6 and OS 9 but are quite pitiful running Mac OS X.

I ran Tiger on a B&W G3, and it ran smoothly.

[pilkenton]

I ended up scrapping it.

[Lord Blackadder]

And another one bites the dust...

Originally Posted by WardC

Interesting enough, some of the older Macs like the IIfx, the Quadra 840av, and the Quadra 605 have a following and bring in good money on eBay whenever they are offered. They are Powerful 68k machines and are rare because they were not mass-produced in high numbers.

True. I won't go so far as to say they're really "valuable" yet (with one or two exceptions like the 20th Anniversary Mac), but most of the rarer 68k Macs are slowly gaining in value these days, and they are bought as collectibles. The value of the more interesting Mac II series machines is now exceeding that of most PPC Macs and even many of the G3/G4-based machines.

I remember back in the early-mid 90s, the bottom dropped out on the value of early Macs. In the early days of the internet original, minty Mac 128Ks and 512Ks could be had for well under $50, sometimes under $20. People were throwing them away back then. Sadly I never snapped one up. Now prices are getting silly.

[miss.manson]

Originally Posted by pilkenton

I ended up scrapping it.

I would have bought this from you.