Forums | MacLife

well, i'd say the reason you can't find the hard drive on ebay is because a) there is no market for them, and b) most have crashed by now and been replaced by something newer.  i have at least 2 of those old apple external hard drives, and have since replaced their guts with smaller sized, bigger capasity hard drives.  they are just 50 pin scsi drives.  you'd be better keeping for the se you want to get.  can never have too much storage.

Derek W. wrote:

No demand?  Have you seen the selling prices of compact macs lately?  It seems like this drive would be of some value to a 128k or 512k owner.

So stick it on eBay and see, why don't you?

I am trying to sell some stuff to buy an SE/30, which sell for quite a bundle ($60-180) on eBay.

Well, that is a rip-off.

,xtG
.tsooJ

Derek W. wrote:

No demand?  Have you seen the selling prices of compact macs lately?  It seems like this drive would be of some value to a 128k or 512k owner. 

I am trying to sell some stuff to buy an SE/30, which sell for quite a bundle ($60-180) on eBay.

if you notice, noone has placed any bids on them.  someone may try to sell them at that price, but doesn't mean anyone will pay it.  i sure wouldn't pay that.  i got both my mac pluses for free, and a mac classic for $5.  i sure wouldn't spend more than that.

I wouldn't be looking for a Mac SE/30 on ebay.  A good way to pay more than nessesary... I'd suggest going over to lowendmac.com , signing up for the LEM swap mailing list and posting a wanted message... could probably get a better price than what you could get buying on ebay.  ebay is the most expensive way to buy used computer gear online....well between that and a few online dealers that never update their prices.

There's also usenet and craigslist, and tons of classic computer websites with forums that contain marketplaces within them that can be found when using the right search terms in google.

ebay should be a last resort.

...Thift shops are places where the merchandise is entierly random, from whether it's even there, to what it's price is... one clerk might think something's only worth $5 and mark it as so another might mark it $55. It's all about luck finding stuff at thrift shops...

I once bought a boxed Apple PowerCD at goodwill for $5 and sold it on LEM swap for $65... they go for more than that on ebay too... but I'm too lazy to fuss with ebay selling.... too busy trying to play with my Apple IIgs and other older computers and video games.

Things are worth what the buyer(s) is/are willing to pay and it's all subjective to how it's being sold and when.(In the summer it's cheaper to buy classic computing gear on ebay than it is the rest of the year.)

Last edited by SuperPsycho (2006-07-07 2:42 am)

Well, I shouldn't have said it should be a last resort... but I personally have usually found better deals elsewhere when said items could be found elswhere. I do research, I try different search terms, if I can find it elsewhere I almost always manage to find it cheaper than the cheapest on ebay.

The one thing you can get on those other sources sometimes that you can't(usually) get on ebay is people just looking to off stuff for cost of shipping of free for pickup. IE: I got my base Apple IIgs setup(along with a second one which I later sold) for cost of shipping, and I got my C64 setup for Free.(I've never tried to get compact macs though... I have a local used computer store that always seems to have an abundant supply of them at $10 to $20 each... havn't seen any SE/30's yet though...but really, I'd rather find a color classic at this point)

Also, craigslist is more local than global... so less compitition for stuff.  (they try to disscourage selling/buying by any means other than in person... a lot of scamming going on with remote buying/selling there)

As far as ebay... I'm forgetting what I did get good... I've found just posted BINS that were lower than all the current auctions.  I've also found auctions that were being ignored by mellon heads who were all hammering away at one auction shooting it way past the bell while the other was almost ending with no bids at all...cuz the other started later and was ending sooner.

Heres one to make ya cry.... I had a perfectly working undamaged 512K with an external FDD, keyboard, maus, original system disks, heaps of original software... AND in the original box complete with original foam packing.

It was almost all destroyed in the 2001 Black Christmas bushfire when the shed got turned into molten liquid...

All I have left from it all is the floopy drive and one of the boot disks... which I happened to have in the house cos I was using them with a Mac Plus....

Ebay.... it's good if you are a discerning buyer... but not if you are a seller... unless you need to get rid of something particularly urgently or have a constant supply of high demand goods that you obtain for a low cost price.

I personally have spent probably no more than 1 or 2 hundred bucks (Australian currency that is) tops in the last 7 years on amassing my entire collection of 60 or more old Mac's, mac clones and other antique computers.... C64's, Amstrad's, Atari's, Amiga's, BBC's etc....

And that includes what one may consider to be items of interest or "rarities" like a couple of 512K's, an SE/30, a Color Classic, a 6100 DOS Compatible, and a IIgs Limited Edition...

The simple fact is, serious computer collectors are a very small market still... only the very earliest machines, with a few exceptions (ie the neon color classic and the 20th Aniversary Mac) are worth large sums of money.... so people will not pay 500 bucks for what they can easily get for 5 bucks at a Thrift or Salvation Army store

Of course one could argue still that any item is worth whatever you are willing to pay for it... but you shouldnt be willing to have your balls broken.

LIke automobiles... computers will progressively become valuable with time as more and more break and are buried in landfill.

It's like a VW bus... 10 years ago a splitwindow could be had for small change so they were worthless when they spat the dummy. Now you would be lucky to get one for under $10000 in Australia because so many were simplyy dumped, crushed, or wrecked for parts when their supposed useful life had finished.... they are now so rare they have become a comodity.

True...well..to be precise...it was a caravan jacked up with the wheels taken off that we had sitting down the back of our 5 acre property.

but we only had a 2 bay garage, and unfortunately,  the olds figured that my piles of computer crap were not sufficiently important to require watertight storage and protecction from the elements.

And besides...being 14 years old.. I figured.. what can possibly happen??...

Here's your way to making thousands from a Mac SE:
Read this!

If you can get a G4 cube or mac mini, a 9-inch color flat-screen LCD monitor, dvd burner or CD-ROM drive, paint or keep it beige, and able to connect it you could make big bucks.

Paint the SE black to make it look cool, also put an apple sticker
on the side, crack open the case, and take everything out. And I mean
EVERYTHING. That will give you enaugh space to have the G4 cube's inside's
inside the SE. Open up the G4 cube or mac mini's case, take everything out
if you're using a G4 cube, if you're using a mac mini, take out the dvd burner but leave the cable attached. Be sure that the mini is close to the display hole. Cut the floppy drive opening that's part of the se's case so that the opening of the dvd burner will fit. for the display, mount the LCD only, not it's casing to the opening on the inside of the SE's case.This is involving opening up the LCD, UNLESS the LCD's case is small enaugh to fit inside the SE's case. Now, the hard part is the connectors, where to put them, but I prefer to put them on the side like an emac, so cut a hole there to make the ports accessible. Just cut a hole so that all the ports are accessible, you don't need to cut each and every port. So if you have a mac mini,*BEEP* EDIT: You can use an external DVD burner and put the mac at the middle. But then you are missing a port, and it makes it harder. *BEEP* back: mount it vertically or horizontally on the right side of your mac. For a G4 Cube, put the ports at the back, because you don't use the case. Please note that the computer is inside the SE case. .I think you're almost done..., unless you want an iSigt mounted on top,just run the power cord out the side or out the back on the G4 Cube. Then you've got your own Mac OS X color screen Mac SE X! All the parts are inside and you could put more in, such as an external hard drive, so everything is in there and no clutter! You can paint it any color, white, red, black, whatever. Or you can keep it beige.

EDIT: You could get thousands instead of hundreds!

Last edited by Wireless USB Adapter (2006-07-14 5:45 pm)

Yep yep! More carage returns!  Monster paragraphs are scarry and make me go

At any rate once I get to the contents of the message I just get to wondering why I'd want that.      .. assuming that my glancing through it is right he's suggesting that you can get thousands from stuffing the guts of a mac mini or cube into the empty case of a Mac SE along with a 9" LCD. 

I'd imagine any profits from selling such a thing would be offset by the cost of aquiring the mac mini or cube, the LCD screen, and the ammount of time required to do the butchering.

SuperPsycho wrote:

I'd imagine any profits from selling such a thing would be offset by the cost of aquiring the mac mini or cube, the LCD screen, and the ammount of time required to do the butchering.

I'm guessing you're right. Anybody who wants such a thing would be able and/or willing to do it themselves.

A few people speculating about building a Mac Mini into an SE case with an LCD screen. Here's mine: http://apptree.net/macsex.htm

A bit pointless, but quite fun to do! I actually built this just after the Mini came out - it seemed an "obvious" thing to do (for me anyway), but only just got around to putting the piccies up on the web.