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Mac Mini at a steal !!!

Aameiel

Aameiel

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 22, 2011
161
4
Cape Coral, FL
My wife was driving home today and decided to stop at a goodwill store and have a look around. She happened to walk by the electronic section when she spotted a mac mini with no price tag on it and it had the power cables on top of it !!!! So she asked someone for a price and this old lady goes " i have no clue what that even is " so my wife goes "oh this is an old toy :) and the worker says well make me an offer and my wife goes give ya 20 for it ? and the worker says "sure" so my wife pays and then leaves and calls me up to tell me about it !!!!!!! so she gets home and i boot it up its a G4 1.25 with 512 megs of ram and a 40 gig hard drive !!! Man i was so happy i just wanted to share the joy !!! Here are some pic's of it

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ps

i have a question !! it only had a cd drive installed is there a way to upgrade it to a dvd drive ?? ty for viewing
 
When i said it only had a cd-rom drive i was mistaken ! I put in a reg dvd and it saw it just fine it just wouldn't read any duel layer ones .. just wanted to put that out there
 
Nice! I sometimes go into pawn shops to look around. The Goodwill stores in my area carry crap.

Example: Last time I was in one they had a filthy spoon/fork/knife drawer organizer for $2. On the side was the Dollar General sticker marked with $1.
 
I have one of these. I am running leopard 10.5 and it's running great! Mine did have 256 mb ram and a 40gb hdd, but I have upgraded this to 1gb which makes leopard run smoother. The drives that came with them were slower 4200rpm drives so putting a faster 5400 in does make a difference.

There is a limit of 100mb transfer rate on the IDE channel so you could look at getting a small ssd if you can find one cheap enough. Well done though, you've had a bargain!
 
NZed said:
I have 3 goodwill stores in my area. I should go check it out sometimes :D
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I think that's fine. But I don't think you have to tell a Goodwill worker that it's just "an old toy." Simply make an offer, or get a price and make a counter offer.
 
Nice that your wife scammed not only an old lady but a charity to boot. Way to put others ahead of herself.
 
marc11 said:
Nice that your wife scammed not only an old lady but a charity to boot. Way to put others ahead of herself.
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I was about to say exactly that. There is no honor in scamming a charity, and gloating about it is alot worse....
You should go back and put at least another $20 or $40 in their donation box.
 
dylanlewis2000 said:
We don't have these stores in the uk... What are they?
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The Goodwill sells donated goods (old clothes, glassware, electronics, etc) and turns the money they make around to help the disadvantaged or those in need. They have programs for job training, etc.

Lots of people use the Goodwill as a dumping ground for all the broken junk they don't want (which is why you find a lot of junk there), but sometimes you can get good finds.

On another note, I don't necessarily agree about "scamming" the old lady. Somebody in the back was not doing their job. A lot of the reason why all you find at the Goodwill is junk is because the people in the back finally realized what was being brought in. Clearly, somebody in that Goodwill missed this.

If you doubt me on the fact that the Goodwill knows much more now, just do a Google search for Goodwill's online auction site. They have one and that's where they put all the quality stuff that gets donated.
 
eyoungren said:
The Goodwill sells donated goods (old clothes, glassware, electronics, etc) and turns the money they make around to help the disadvantaged or those in need. They have programs for job training, etc.

Lots of people use the Goodwill as a dumping ground for all the broken junk they don't want (which is why you find a lot of junk there), but sometimes you can get good finds.

On another note, I don't necessarily agree about "scamming" the old lady. Somebody in the back was not doing their job. A lot of the reason why all you find at the Goodwill is junk is because the people in the back finally realized what was being brought in. Clearly, somebody in that Goodwill missed this.

If you doubt me on the fact that the Goodwill knows much more now, just do a Google search for Goodwill's online auction site. They have one and that's where they put all the quality stuff that gets donated.
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So telling the old lady the item was "an old toy" so she would accept $20 is not taking advantage or scamming? Then what was it? Hey if the thing was priced at $20 so be it. If the old lady said that she wanted $20 so be it. But that is not what took place.

The old lady was lied to so she would think it was only worth $20. Get karma can be a beotch. What goes around comes around.

But me the right thing to do, considering the good the community gets from goodwill would have been to be honest that it was an older computer and say she wanted to offer $20 for it. If the old lady accepted no harm.

But the op is gloating they his wife knowingly took advantage of an old lady who did not know better and the charity itself.

No two ways to look at this. It is morally and ethically wrong.
 
It's not something I would have said/done myself personally. All I'm saying is I'm neutral on this.

But. It's not the responsibility of the purchaser to inform the seller what they should know already.
 
although I have purchased PMG4s and imacG3s at goodwill for $20 - $25, the whole toy thing is what bothers me, not the price.
 
lol! I'm not judging you but I just find it funny that you are so proud and gloating about scamming a goodwill shop.
 
marc11 said:
So telling the old lady the item was "an old toy" so she would accept $20 is not taking advantage or scamming? Then what was it? Hey if the thing was priced at $20 so be it. If the old lady said that she wanted $20 so be it. But that is not what took place.

The old lady was lied to so she would think it was only worth $20. Get karma can be a beotch. What goes around comes around.

But me the right thing to do, considering the good the community gets from goodwill would have been to be honest that it was an older computer and say she wanted to offer $20 for it. If the old lady accepted no harm.

But the op is gloating they his wife knowingly took advantage of an old lady who did not know better and the charity itself.

No two ways to look at this. It is morally and ethically wrong.
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I don't think I've actually witnessed someone being as buttsore as you appear to be. I didn't see your outcry for the dude who scored the $65 ipad2. If the OP would have posted this in the Intel forums I think 99% of the people here would say wow he payed way too much, he could have bought an Apple t-shirt that would have been way faster and can do flash.

If you feel so cheated and morally misplaced, please sell your iphone and laptop and donate all the money you get for it to the Goodwill, to help them cover the massive blackhole of debt they just took on from this moral strongarm robbery. Everything there is donated, as in it cost them zero dollars. And I'm amazed you use Apple products considering most civilized nations would consider the labor Apple pays for to make the products you buy both morally and ethically wrong, some would even go as far to call it greed.
 
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I know this isn't gonna matter since so many are so fast to talk crap but i not only do i donate a ton of stuff to them but i also volunteer my time to help them like driving the bus's for them to take elderly to doc appoints etc but none of that will matter ... I didn't start this thread to cause a war ! was just excited to add the mini to a good home.
 
Android4tw said:
I know this isn't gonna matter since so many are so fast to talk crap but i not only do i donate a ton of stuff to them but i also volunteer my time to help them like driving the bus's for them to take elderly to doc appoints etc but none of that will matter ... I didn't start this thread to cause a war ! was just excited to add the mini to a good home.
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Great find, and what a cool wife! Don't worry about other peoples fits. I wanna check a local goodwill and see if I find a PPC Mac now! haha.
 
Do we nerds play with computers? Yes. They are our toys. The wife did NOTHING wrong. She simply told a watered down version of the truth. They still have $20 more than they would have. Stop complaining for something that really doesn't matter to you.

Great find. Great price. The American pickers do this daily, and get paid for it.
 
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