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PowerPC Macs Are Increasing In Value

timidpimpin

timidpimpin

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Nov 10, 2018
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I was spending a few minutes this morning looking through Mac values in the Mactracker app, which uses a website called Bidvoy to provide current values for many of the Mac systems.

One trend I noticed is that several G4 systems were valued higher than more powerful early Intel systems.

Some examples...

A mid 2007 Mac Mini is currently worth $29 US vs $32 for a G4 Mini. A late 2009 Mac Mini is valued at $86 vs $99 for a Sawtooth. That mini is at least 10x more powerful, yet is worth $13 less. Also, an MDD is valued at $81. I would take an MDD over a Swtooth any day, and yet I would have to pay $18 more for the Sawtooth if the seller went by market values.

It seems to all be based on age, and older is better right now. Share your thoughts.
 
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PPC macs have been very over priced for some time now. Especially on ebay. I only buy them from recyclers or from people who don't know what they are and just want it gone. I have three sawtooths. The most I paid was $50 and it came with a mouse and keyboard, and a monitor. The other two were $10 a piece. I know the value is increasing, which I also think is cool to an extent. But the majority of what I see are people just trying to make a quick buck.
 
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There's age, and then there's what late PowerPC represents in 2019.

Vintage Macs have been mostly overlooked as beige box PCs have found a second life as vintage gaming battle stations. Macs have never really been known for games. However, Macs have a tiny feather in their caps as machines that are easier to maintain than their DOS PC counterparts. Then there's the early GUI software, the DTP software, the Multimedia software, which I think has been only recently rediscovered to a tiny degree in the form of recent waves of HyperCard nostalgia.

PowerPC at its latest represents a time capsule Mac OS X before the iPad came to suck all the oxygen out of the room. And, irrelevant to what's inflating second hand prices, a funny thing that has been recently discussed on the down-low of Apple Twitter, is that Snow Leopard's massively parallel subsystems and encouraged design patterns perhaps eventually led to the infamous performance regressions of later iOS releases (via mjtsai). Keeping processes mostly single threaded where possible ala Tiger and Leopard seems to be responsible for many of the perf wins in iOS 12.

Classic Mode is also a nice perk. I don't know exactly what's making a Sawtooth more valuable than an MDD, it could be that the know-how to boot Mac OS 9 on an MDD isn't that widely known.

Even Gruber's been boosting the aluminum PowerBook G4. I'll admit that the 12 inch one has never really gone out of style, but I remember when the unibodies were just launched and the 12 inch was feeling pretty crusty, especially if you gave it GarageBand '09.
 
I think PowerPC Macs are the computers that were in the home when those in their late teens and early 20s were growing up. A certain sense of nostalgia is probably driving value at this point.

I know if I had the money, I would put out for a Commodore 64 or 128 and peripherals. Those computers were what was in my home in my late teens. I had a lot of fun with that computer. I suspect this is probably the same reason those I mentioned above might be pursuing PowerPC Macs.

And the Sawtooth was ubiquitous. Apple probably sold more of those than Quicksilvers or MDDs.

Unlike the Commodore 64 or 128 however, Apple made MANY of these Macs. A fact I think which has limited somewhat any recent rise in value. Scarcity isn't a factor right now. But I wonder when that will turn.

We can still seek out parts on eBay or other places with relative ease at the moment. But there will be a day where we can't find this stuff anymore or have to pay through the nose for it. And we might be lucky if it works.
 
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timidpimpin said:
A Sawtooth is more common and also slower than an MDD, but is worth more. Makes no sense.
Click to expand...

The Sawtooth definitely has the edge when it comes to nostalgia.

First of all, it represents the high point of Apple's side of the Megahertz Wars, back when they were winning. PowerPC chips were spanking the pants off of anything Intel had to offer back then, so much so that the Sawtooth was the first personal computer ever to be classified by the U.S. Dept. of Defense as "munitions" and therefore under export restriction...which sounds a lot more impressive than it really was, but made for a great commercial.

Then there's the fact that the largest market for Macs - at least back then - was the USA, and the Sawtooth was one of the last computers Apple ever made in the USA. I like looking at the back of my Sawtooth and seeing "Power Mac G4 Assembled in USA"; versus the meaningless marketing phrase, "Designed by Apple in California" on the back of my MDD, which is just like every other Apple product made since (fact is, my MDD was assembled in the USA too, but that info is relegated to very small wording on a very small sticker). Obviously this means more to some people than to others, but there certainly is nostalgia out there for a time when Apple's stuff was made in America.

Next, there's the sheer versatility of the Sawtooth. It and the Yikes! are the only Power Mac G4's capable of booting OS 8.6, and with a bit of software hackery and/or a CPU upgrade can run any OS that the MDD is capable of, all the way up to Leopard. Speaking of CPU upgrades, you can fit a G4 into the Sawtooth that will run anywhere from 350 MHz to 2 GHz, while there was only ever one commercial CPU upgrade made for the MDD.

Then there's reliability: every MDD ever made has a time bomb of a power supply unit. It WILL fail, it's just a question of when; and the design of the MDD precludes an easy replacement. The Sawtooth, on the other hand, readily accepts a cheap, easily pin-modified PC-standard ATX power supply that bolts right in to the space occupied by the original. In every other respect, too, the Sawtooth is practically bulletproof and easy to work on. If taken care of, it will last as long as one cares to have it around.

A Sawtooth was the first desktop Mac I ever owned, and I've had 3 or 4 of them over the years and done just about everything hardware-wise that you can do with one. I much prefer my MDD, but the only reason it's not in a landfill today is because I've resurrected it a couple of times; ironically, using skills I learned by playing around with my Sawtooths [teeth?]. There's just a lot more one can learn about the Mac, both hardware- and software-wise, from a Sawtooth as opposed to an MDD. That might be what's driving demand. All of which is just my opinion, of course.
 
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Raging Dufus said:
The Sawtooth definitely has the edge when it comes to nostalgia.

First of all, it represents the high point of Apple's side of the Megahertz Wars, back when they were winning. PowerPC chips were spanking the pants off of anything Intel had to offer back then, so much so that the Sawtooth was the first personal computer ever to be classified by the U.S. Dept. of Defense as "munitions" and therefore under export restriction...which sounds a lot more impressive than it really was, but made for a great commercial.

Then there's the fact that the largest market for Macs - at least back then - was the USA, and the Sawtooth was one of the last computers Apple ever made in the USA. I like looking at the back of my Sawtooth and seeing "Power Mac G4 Assembled in USA"; versus the meaningless marketing phrase, "Designed by Apple in California" on the back of my MDD, which is just like every other Apple product made since (fact is, my MDD was assembled in the USA too, but that info is relegated to very small wording on a very small sticker). Obviously this means more to some people than to others, but there certainly is nostalgia out there for a time when Apple's stuff was made in America.

Next, there's the sheer versatility of the Sawtooth. It and the Yikes! are the only Power Mac G4's capable of booting OS 8.6, and with a bit of software hackery and/or a CPU upgrade can run any OS that the MDD is capable of, all the way up to Leopard. Speaking of CPU upgrades, you can fit a G4 into the Sawtooth that will run anywhere from 350 MHz to 2 GHz, while there was only ever one commercial CPU upgrade made for the MDD.

Then there's reliability: every MDD ever made has a time bomb of a power supply unit. It WILL fail, it's just a question of when; and the design of the MDD precludes an easy replacement. The Sawtooth, on the other hand, readily accepts a cheap, easily pin-modified PC-standard ATX power supply that bolts right in to the space occupied by the original. In every other respect, too, the Sawtooth is practically bulletproof and easy to work on. If taken care of, it will last as long as one cares to have it around.

A Sawtooth was the first desktop Mac I ever owned, and I've had 3 or 4 of them over the years and done just about everything hardware-wise that you can do with one. I much prefer my MDD, but the only reason it's not in a landfill today is because I've resurrected it a couple of times; ironically, using skills I learned by playing around with my Sawtooths [teeth?]. There's just a lot more one can learn about the Mac, both hardware- and software-wise, from a Sawtooth as opposed to an MDD. That might be what's driving demand. All of which is just my opinion, of course.
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Well said. Thanks for all the info. You should be a Sawtooth salesperson. :)

I have a Gigabit Ethernet tower with a G4 1.3GHz. It's a great machine also. I'm pretty sure it has a good track record.
 
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timidpimpin said:
I have a Gigabit Ethernet tower with a G4 1.3GHz. It's a great machine also. I'm pretty sure it has a good track record.
Click to expand...

I used to have one of those! :) Traded it off for a TiBook as I recall. Good times.

GigE's are awesome machines. In my book, they're second only to the Sawtooth for reliability. And unlike the Sawtooth, there's never a question of whether or not it will support dual processors. Gotta love 'em.
 
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eyoungren said:
Unlike the Commodore 64 or 128 however, Apple made MANY of these Macs. A fact I think which has limited somewhat any recent rise in value.
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Ermm? Huh? What?

Apple made several different models of PPC Macs, but there were also plenty variations of 8bit C=.
As for actual numbers sold, the 64 is in a league of it's own.

The main difference might be that C64s were always seen as toys and more likely to have landed in landfills in the early 90s, compared to the once super expensive Apple gear.
 
Bug-Creator said:
Ermm? Huh? What?

Apple made several different models of PPC Macs, but there were also plenty variations of 8bit C=.
As for actual numbers sold, the 64 is in a league of it's own.

The main difference might be that C64s were always seen as toys and more likely to have landed in landfills in the early 90s, compared to the once super expensive Apple gear.
Click to expand...
I was always under the impression that while Commodore did sell a lot of computers, compared to PCs or or the Mac it wasn't very much. And at a certain point the company went out of business.
 
C= 64 stayed 12 years for sale with somewhere between 12 and 17 million units shipped.

The by far best selling computer of all times (well unless you count phones at which point various would be ahead).

Apple did sell a lot in the US, but was elsewhere a far behind 2-5th with a microscopic marketshare which didn't improve till a few years after Steve came back, I'd even say till after the Intel switch.

Bout the topic at hand, doubt that there is any point of talking an increase in value of these PPCs as long as they stay in sub 100$/€ area. Just a lot of fluctuation driven by local supply&demand.
 
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willmtaylor said:
It’s due to limited stock which is due to MRF members hoarding the market supply.

Like the Da Beers Group for old Mac hardware. ;)
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I'm a bit guilty of this. :D I got into this hobby around mid 2015, and even then PowerPC prices were close to rock bottom. I could get an iMac G3, G4 Tower, or iBook for under 30 bucks on Craigslist and similar sites. Now if I can even find ANY vintage hardware, the sellers want $50 at least, and eBay is even worse. As I saw the prices rising I decided that when something I wanted is for sale, I need to get it and hold on to it, otherwise I might not get another chance.
 
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If you think old Macs are expensive take a look at the prices of early Amiga and Atari systems, they can be eye watering. A 1992 Amiga 4000 will cost you more than a brand new Mac Mini. It's quite common for things (not just computers but cars etc) to 'bottom out' and then start increasing in price again as they get more scarce and in demand.
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Macbookprodude said:
PowerPC Macs also to me are real Macs. They feel like real Macs.
Click to expand...

Agreed, Macs are so watered down these days, most of the things that I used to love about them are gone. For me the 'Mac era' where I wouldn't even entertain using something else was 2002-2007.
 
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Over the years I managed to pick up two PowerBook G3 "Kanga" laptops and both of them are still fully functional. I don't do too much with them these days since I have newer laptops (see sig below) to use these days...

I think it would be interesting to see just how much certain computers offered by Apple are worth these days but I'm not in the mindset that what I have is worth a lot of money... it is just nice to know the Kansas I have are rare enough that they were sold by Apple for only 6 months at incredibly high pricing... I believe around $5700 for the base model of the Kanga...
 
eyoungren said:
I think PowerPC Macs are the computers that were in the home when those in their late teens and early 20s were growing up. A certain sense of nostalgia is probably driving value at this point.
Click to expand...

That's my reasoning. I'm 32 now. I grew up with Macs that were second hand. I had a few Performas, LC2, LC3, Mac SE and a few clones then I got my own computer, an iBook G3 400Mhz that I saved up for and bought myself in 2003.

I continued buying Macs around $1200 price range until I started making decent money now I have the MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, iMac, etc.

However, this means that when I was a kid, I wanted a Cube, a G4 PowerMac, a Tibook and other computers but no way at 16 was I spending $2000 on a computer so I just looked at MacMall catalogues and drooled. Now that these machines are $150-$200, I'm interested in buying a few to keep around as mementos.
 
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adamjackson said:
That's my reasoning. I'm 32 now. I grew up with Macs that were second hand. I had a few Performas, LC2, LC3, Mac SE and a few clones then I got my own computer, an iBook G3 400Mhz that I saved up for and bought myself in 2003.

I continued buying Macs around $1200 price range until I started making decent money now I have the MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, iMac, etc.

However, this means that when I was a kid, I wanted a Cube, a G4 PowerMac, a Tibook and other computers but no way at 16 was I spending $2000 on a computer so I just looked at MacMall catalogues and drooled. Now that these machines are $150-$200, I'm interested in buying a few to keep around as mementos.
Click to expand...
A few years back I had the opportunity to pick up a Quicksilver for $50 and two iBook G3s. I don't care for iBooks so the seller was taking them off my hands as far as I was concerned.

Back in the day that these were current, I wanted one so this worked out. Over several years I managed to add everything I could not have dreamed of getting for free or pennies. Ultimately, that Mac suffered due to my overloading it and poor thermal design inside. But it was a fun ride.

Now, my G5 Quad gives me the same thing but handles it with ease. For everything I've done to both Macs I would easily have spent close to $10-20k back in the day. Which is a reason I value PowerPC. I can get ultimate dream systems because they are inexpensive now.

My son grew up with an iBook G3 then moved on to a 15" TiBook and then a 15" AlBook. Just because these were the systems I could afford for him. He has never lacked for a computer since he was 3, albeit not up to date systems. But where his friends had phones but shared the family computer, my son had his own. With the fact that they were so inexpensive I could afford to have multiples (and I do). It'll be a shame when someday the only way to see or interact with these machines is in a museum.
 
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...it's why I want a maxed out G5 Xserve. I know running OSX Server on it would kill my power bills but I have a rack in my house and it's such a gorgeous machine. with those blue blinking LEDs. an Xserve RAID is even worse of a value proposition. I think it uses SAS drives which are still stupid expensive for the maximum capacity you can run. sigh. at some point it's just hoarding but I couldn't afford a $5,000 Xserve in 2005. Getting one for $250 now just seems like a steal until you remember how slow they are compared to a basic Synology now.
 
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It's nice seeing some of these computers still being used today! Even though I still retain my Kanga laptops as well as my first Mac, an SE/30, I have pretty much moved on to my MacPro 4,1 and 5,1 and my more updated MacPro/Air laptops...but still fire up my legacy PowerPC computers from time to time though :)
 
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