I would guess you guys have 10000x more G5 Macs in your parts than we do here in the Nordics so I was expecting them to be dirt cheap. And so plentiful you do not need to ship them from far away. But, even we do have "plenty" (relative) to choose from, there are always few for sale and indeed they are usually quite cheap. But, outrageous asking prices are sometimes common too but they drop when nobody is willing to pay such prices.
I am guessing that people do not generally see them very useful anymore and the guys buying them are hardline weirdos (hobbyists) 😉 who are in reality quite rare in our small population. On the other hand you might have much higher demand due more hobbyists and that is driving the prices up? Shipping: cost of shipping a such computer here to any corner of the country is max 20-30€ ($35). Maybe double if you want to insure it or ship it as fragile but no point really as the machines are so cheap anyway. In many cases shipping is more affordable than driving yourself to pick it up.
I have 4 G5 towers. First one is a 1.8GHz which my brother gave to me free. Second one is a late 2005 2.0DC which I bought for 15€ and got it shipped across the country for 20€. Third one is a late 2005 Quad which I got for helping an older gentleman to install his newer Mac which he was having some trouble with. He gave me the machine and couple of boxes of other old Mac stuff as a thank you for your help -gesture. The fourth one is also a late 2005 Quad which had bent handles but was otherwise in perfect working condition, seller asked 20€ and I drove 30 miles to pick it up.
And these prices are not super special, not everyday but every now and then you see similar prices. I would say late 2005 machines are usually somewhere between 50 and 100 euros (Quads can be anything depending on what the seller thinks he has - either a super special flagship model or the potential stupid water leak junk). Sometimes they are offered even free if you are willing to pick it up. Like I said higher asking prices also exist but they rarely sell. People are even selling working machines for use in cool PC-builds as they haven't been able to sell them as Macs.
Ps. ebay seems always have much higher prices than local classifieds or forum for sale ads. Patience seems a good idea when looking for one.
Shipping is commonly $100 for these here. Sometimes they will do lower, mine was like $75 or so it kind of depends. I think it's just the sheer weight because actual delivery is just a few days time. I do think it's being inflated due to where I live. The funny thing is I actually _need_ 2 CPUs and at least 8GBs of RAM for what I will do with it (build modern software for a 21 year old operating system). I am still 6GBs short once this arrives, but I've seen building gcc16 eat 8GBs of my 12GB Mac Pro 1,1 RAM already. Even so, it will still be much faster then the Mac mini 1.33GHZ G4 with 512MBs of RAM.
Also unfortunately not in a situation right now where I can go and pick it up easily.
For reference, enjoy these
Shipping:
US $145.11 USPS Ground Advantage
Description: 100-120v / 200-240v. 12a / 6a. 50 -60 hertz. Power pc. 970 mp. 2.0 ghz . 512 mb. Ram No OS No. HDD No GPU.
This one has "free shipping" what a deal
The "READ" and "PARTS ONLY" is inspiring on this listing:
And for non-quads, this is the only thing I could recommend because I almost did this one, but it was worse spec'd had no HDD, almost certainly less RAM too:
This one here is same speed as what I got (but it's not an early 2005, it's actually a 2004 if you look at serial number and seperated G5 metal) , but $90 shipping and no HDD.
If you look, TWENTY people want that 2004 2.0ghz dual CPU G5 without a HDD for a total of just under $400 delivered. No proof it even boots into Mac OS X.
I lurked for quite awhile, I would say if you wait or are OK with getting an incomplete system you can do the $200-$300 range. Just in my situation if you factor in having to get an expensive ($70ish) specific SSD because you HAVE to run Tiger (or look for a SATA 3.5 inch HDD made before 2009/2010) and got one without the HDD (and also like me didn't know about the backup screws, but still at least this one should have all mounting screws intact when it arrives), it kinda just made more sense for me to get a complete system with a HDD that in the listing is showing Tiger running. If you’re OK with a single G5 you might have more options for less too, but I really will need both for building software as quickly as possible.
