$50 for an orange iMac - reasonable?

[Dog Cow]

The campus PC repair shop has a "scrap pile" of old machines, mostly PCs, which are destined for the recycler. In the past year, I have purchased a desktop G3 and a 20" Apple ColorSync monitor, both for $30.

Now, they have an orange iMac and the shop owner is offering it for $50, but refuses to negotiate. A worker at the shop remarked that they could get $20 at the recycler for this iMac. They tested the iMac and said that it works, but they have wiped the HD on it after testing, and no one was able to tell me how much RAM is in the iMac, nor how large the HD is. So essentially I am buying it "as-is" and I don't know exactly what I'm getting.

I was prepared to offer $30-40 for this iMac. Is that reasonable, or is it really worth the $50, keeping in mind the situation which I described?

 

[luddite]

Seems a bit steep to me, unless it's in museum condition. The real question is: is it worth it to you? If the $50 won't lead to starvation and the iMac is something you'd get any use out of then I'd say go for it.

BTW, if you have an OS X install disk you can verify RAM, HDD etc -- if they won't let you do that then I'd be a little wary.

 

[Dog Cow]

It's going to be given to a friend as an upgrade to an original bondi iMac which I gave him a few years back. He doesn't know that he's getting it though. It's sort of a late-Christmas / early-birthday gift.

 

[zerotypeq]

I bought a 6 or 700mhz imac for 20 or so bucks with hd/etc... I'd be firm with an offer of 30 since after all it is 10 bucks more than they are saying the recyclers would give them which I kinda doubt anyways.

 

[Mars478]

What type of model? Slotloader or Trayloader? This makes a huge difference. Technically this should be the price for these iMacs, but their price is so low because they are commodity.

30-40$ is fine. I draw the line at 50$ for spending on an old mac.

 

[Dog Cow]

I'm not certain, but I think that it's a tray-loader. I didn't pay attention. Also keep in mind, I haven't actually seen this thing work. I could buy it, take it home, and it's totally trashed.

So I don't know if I'm going to stop in the shop again or not.

 

[Bunsen]

Any bootable CD should allow you to check those things. Bootable on that particular iMac that is.

If the HD appears on the desktop, select it and hit Apple-I for information. To check RAM and CPU, select About This Mac from the Apple menu (top left)

Didn't think the trayloaders came in orange. Check LEM or everymac.

IMHO trayloaders aren't worth the effort. They top out at 333MHz and you need laptop RAM. So if it is a trayloader, my opinion is that it's definitely not worth $50.

 

[LCGuy]

If it was AU$50, I'd snap it straight up. But US$50? Fahgeddaboutit.

 

[Dog Cow]

They're not really very friendly at this shop. It is PC-only. I'm not sure if it's worth my time/money to come back and ask again about the iMac.

And the orange iMac was both tray- and slot-loading.

 

[Osgeld]

i would give them the option

40$ and you take it

or they can take it to the recyclers and hope to get 20$

 

[Dog Cow]

Yeah, I agree with you. They're lucky to get any sale on it at all. The thing is, I didn't even get a chance to make my offer. It was literally, "$50, as-is, and that's final." Maybe I should have been more assertive.

 

[Mike Richardson]

Any legitimate recycler paying $20 for an old iMac is horseshit.

It generally costs recyclers money to deal with the CRTs. That means there has to be more than $20 in scrap value in the remaining parts, and there isn't.

Tray load CD - worthless

Hard drive - less than $1

Motherboard - small motherboard equals small scrap value

CPU - small scrap value due to lack of gold on those particular CPUs

Memory - small scrap value

Analog Board - almost no scrap value

CRT - negative scrap value

Copper Windings - reduced copper values

Plastics - less than 1¢

Steel - less than 1¢

Even if the recycler is fake and just dumps the CRT in a river they still aren't making $20.

 

[Dog Cow]

Excellent, now we've got the expert's evaluation.

Now I need to make up my mind whether I want to try and go in again. The problem was that all communication was through an employee, not the boss-man who set the $50 price. I went in yesterday at 2 PM and asked if it worked, and the owner said he'd have someone test it maybe later that day. I came in at 4 PM, still no. That was the last time I spoke directly to the shop owner. Twenty-four hours later, I stopped in a 4 PM again (today) and was greeted by an employee. This was the employee who gave the $20 figure. It was basically me talking to him, then he'd go over to the owner who was busy in the back with something else, then relay communications back and forth.

I figure it's either I have to confront the owner face-to-face and try to negotiate a deal, or just forget it. The problem is that he's always in the back somewhere, and there's always 4 - 5 employees swarming around. This is a somewhat small shop.

 

[Osgeld]

show up around 10ish (smoke break lol)

 

[Bunsen]

dolla fiddy

 

[MacJunky]

dolla fiddy

tree fiddy!

 

[Mars478]

fy fiddy!

I think this is too much work for an iMac you can find on a curb. Abandon ship.

 

[Osgeld]

mars, not everyone lives in new york, not everyone lives in a city, hell if i want to see a curb i have to drive 10 min and I have never found a Macintosh on one (found a 386 in a ditch one time but no mac on a curb)

and round these parts, the hillbillys will try to sell you a beat up pos bondi for 150$

so just cause you happen to live in a place where people treat the streets as a dumpster (and urinal) doesn't mean its not worth while to someone else in a whole different situation

 

[ChristTrekker]

I was getting early G3 iMacs as giveaways even several years ago. If it's a top-end G3 iMac, maybe I'd consider US $10-25, if I wanted one. (Personally I've no interest in PPC/Intel AIOs, but that's me.) $50 is a sad sad joke.