Question about the value of a couple vintage machines

Over the weekend I picked up a Macintosh Quadra 650 and a Power Macintosh G3 (beige desktop) from someone getting rid of some of their collection. Earlier today he posted a few more systems for sale, and a couple caught my eye - a Macintosh LC III for $50 and a Kaypro IV for $50.

Are these systems worth that much? The LC III is working apart from a dead hard drive, and the Kaypro has a PSU issue (not that surprising) keeping the floppy drives from operating.

Comments

  • Value depends on a lot of factors.

    Cosmetic condition and completeness, if units are tested and working, if the seller is knowledgeable and reputable, maintenance such as replacing caps, and the venue they are selling through (sellers can afford to sell for much lower prices outside of ebay)

    Unless they are rust buckets, $50 for a Macintosh LC III or Kaypro IV is a very good deal. If this does not involve shipping, I'd say go for it, if the units interest you.

    From what I have seen, Mac LC machines are fairly nice little 68k CPU machines. Might need recapping, though. You would probably want a SCSI2SD anyway instead of the hard drive. (Although if the drive spins up, you might try attaching it to a PC SCSI card to try and do a "low-level"/wipe)

    Kaypros are nice CP/M machines. Hopefully soldering repairs is up your alley, that would be cool to get running.
  • The seller is definitely knowledgeable. I bought two machines from him this past weekend and they're both exactly as described, and he does know the history of the machines.

    The LC III isn't in amazing condition (it's yellowed, and the hard drive is dead), but it does power up and it comes with an ethernet card installed.

    The Kaypro also isn't in amazing shape, but from the pictures it definitely doesn't look bad. The power issue doesn't seem to be a major problem given that the rest of the computer is powering up just fine, including the CRT. The seller did some testing and found that 5V was not going to the drives, so it doesn't sound terrible.

    Regarding the SCSI2SD - I actually bought one from this guy last weekend. He gave me a good deal on it bundled with the other machines, so that's handy to have.

    I've decided to go ahead and send him an offer for both machines - if I don't do that now then I'm sure one machine will be gone, if not both. These aren't common at all around my area.
  • Any time you can get any old computer working or not if you have one of the same like then you now have parts for later. Yes $50 dollars is a steal even for non working Kaypros!
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