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Wow, didn't realize the iBook G3 Clamshell is so expensive!
- Thread starter Johnny365
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I used to collect and resell the a lot last year. I kind of got out of it a little, but they have significantly gone up in value in the last few months.
People might just love to collect them now, and there's also the polka dot guy that buys them up.
I just had a look at my past eBay purchases, and four years ago I bought two clamshells (a 466SE and a faulty older one) for £54 inc shipping. I think the newer one had some damage to the top case so I created a bit of a multicoloured Frankenstein. It worked perfectly though, battery even held a charge. Maxed out the RAM. Sold it last year for £135. (I also got a decent amount for the remaining parts). I'm sure non-Frankenstein ones would fetch even more today!
I think PPCs are generally getting more expensive because they've crossed over from 'pretty but useless old computers' to the 'vintage' and 'collectible' categories.
I think PPCs are generally getting more expensive because they've crossed over from 'pretty but useless old computers' to the 'vintage' and 'collectible' categories.
I knew they were pricy, but has there really been a noticeable increase in value over just the last few months? Was one featured in a movie or something?
They are not the only old notebooks increasing in value and far from the most expensive. Niche old things like PPC Thinkpads and Alpha or Sparc equipped Tadpole notebooks start from £$€1,000, if you can persuade their owners to part with them.
Can you please enlarge on the reasoning for your title? What exactly is "so expensive"? Have you recently seen one or more ads for iBook Clamshells which particularly surprise you price-wise? And where are you located?
As an example, a seller in a country where these Clamshells were never sold and may still be rarely seen, could request and possibly sell at a higher price than say in the US or the UK - where I believe they can still be found fairly cheaply, i.e. approx US$60 or £50. Of course if one is lucky they may turn up in a GoodWill store or similar for mere pocket money.
@AL1630 raises an interesting point. If one has featured recently on (say) in a popular tv series, then yes one would expect the prices to increase, especially as then demand could well exceed supply.
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That is why I wouldn't part with mine as long as the polka-dot-guy is lurking around and eventially might stick a plasic-lobster onto it ...
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Objection! "Pretty but useless" is a really unfair description of these old "tools", since they might cover >50% of basic things expected from a computer and in combination with a mobile device even more. And they might be a 100% distraction-free.
But basically you're right: they are pretty, they are vintage and collectible (but still not useless).
Just randomy looking on Facebook Marketplace and someone was selling a clamshell and said "make offer" so I said $20 based off of what I paid several years ago, I thought they were around that price point. I got promptly blocked. lol
On Ebay, several seem to go in the $200-300+ range. US baby!
It probably doesn't help that the killer app, the feature that Steve Jobs showed off himself, was wifi. They were meant to browse the web, even if 800x600 felt claustrophobic by 2000. I say all of that because we still convince PPC Macs to get online all the time, but between Tenfourfox needing far more to be an ok experience and 802.11b support being spotty at best these days, if you're going to get one of these for use in 2020, you sort of have to ignore a lot of why they existed in the first place.
But the iBook G3 was utterly iconic, and it looks so amazing on a shelf, the collectors market has drove the price up like crazy.
But the iBook G3 was utterly iconic, and it looks so amazing on a shelf, the collectors market has drove the price up like crazy.
What I meant is, they can't really do what most people use a computer for these days - the Internet, YouTube, etc. So they're not really usable as daily tools for most people, though they will have other uses. For example, I found that my iBook G3 played iTunes fairly well (even over WiFi with music stored on another networked Mac), so I used it at a birthday party a few years ago and people thought it was very cool. But I wouldn't have dreamt of using it for a whole lot more than that.
Ignore the Internet though, and they can still do the same things they did 20 years ago - the same games and apps, etc. But even if you had a particular professional need to run a PPC app, there's probably more stable ways to run it, for example a Rosetta in a Snow Leopard VM on a modern Mac.
I say this as a big PowerPC fan! I currently only have a G4 MDD but have probably owned most PPC computers over the years. But I see them as a hobby and collector's items, not really usable tools.
I think I've said it before, but a clamshell G3 iBook (or prop clone) popped up in an Ariana Grande video a while back:
My impression is that Ariana Grande has two main audiences - teenage girls and forty-something men who call women "females". The latter group probably has a bunch of iBooks in their garage. I remember a bunch of iBooks suddenly appearing on eBay in the UK immediately after that. However they don't appear to have sold and although they still appear, they languish.
Ditto the rectangular white iBooks, e.g. this "collectors item" with a broken Superdrive and a duff battery that has stuck around since November last year:
I'm surprised he doesn't relist it as L@@K PRE-COVID STERILE UNTOUCHED IBOOK and highlight the fact that the internal air is free of disease.
My impression is that Ariana Grande has two main audiences - teenage girls and forty-something men who call women "females". The latter group probably has a bunch of iBooks in their garage. I remember a bunch of iBooks suddenly appearing on eBay in the UK immediately after that. However they don't appear to have sold and although they still appear, they languish.
Ditto the rectangular white iBooks, e.g. this "collectors item" with a broken Superdrive and a duff battery that has stuck around since November last year:
Apple iBook G3, 2001 600MHz, 384mb SDram, Collectors item
Apple iBook G3, 2001 600MHz, 384mb SDram, Collectors item in Computers/Tablets & Networking, Laptops & Netbooks, Apple Laptops | eBay
www.ebay.co.uk
I'm surprised he doesn't relist it as L@@K PRE-COVID STERILE UNTOUCHED IBOOK and highlight the fact that the internal air is free of disease.
It's not just PPC systems that have increased. I posted a month or so ago about this in the MacBook Pro forum. It seems that a lot of things have gone up in value over the past few months. Even "for parts" MacBook Pros.
I think I've said it before, but a clamshell G3 iBook (or prop clone) popped up in an Ariana Grande video a while back:
My impression is that Ariana Grande has two main audiences - teenage girls and forty-something men who call women "females". The latter group probably has a bunch of iBooks in their garage. I remember a bunch of iBooks suddenly appearing on eBay in the UK immediately after that. However they don't appear to have sold and although they still appear, they languish.
Ditto the rectangular white iBooks, e.g. this "collectors item" with a broken Superdrive and a duff battery that has stuck around since November last year:
Apple iBook G3, 2001 600MHz, 384mb SDram, Collectors item
Apple iBook G3, 2001 600MHz, 384mb SDram, Collectors item in Computers/Tablets & Networking, Laptops & Netbooks, Apple Laptops | eBaywww.ebay.co.uk
I'm surprised he doesn't relist it as L@@K PRE-COVID STERILE UNTOUCHED IBOOK and highlight the fact that the internal air is free of disease.
Hahaha, YMMD!
In this particular case I call myself lucky to be far beyond forty-something and probably out of the list of suspects
But I have to disagree in one point: no iBook-G3 Snow would get away with that "pre COVID sterile"-declaration.
As soon as the lid has been lifted and someone puts his nose close to the keyboard there will be an urgent call for a decontamination task-force unit.
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Lucky! Did you get them locally or online? In my experience there are much better deals to be found locally.
I've always liked the look of clamshell iBooks along with the fruit color iMacs. I managed to get a tangerine iBook for about $50 recently, but it has some issues, namely cracked plastic and a red line on the screen that won't go away. In terms of performance, I find it to be lacking compared to the later IceBooks(Dual USB iBooks). Tiger runs rather slow on 300mhz (it's not officially supported, but that's what was on the iBook when I got it). OS 9 runs okay, but again I think the IceBooks do a better job. There's also no FireWire on the original Clamshells. In my opinion, the clamshells look great in a collection, but for actual OS 9 use I would recommend something newer like the IceBooks. For OS X, I prefer a fast G4 over using a G3.