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what is my old apple 2 gs worth?

J

jeff0172

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2012
Messages
197
Location
ferndale,michigan
hello i have a apple 2 gs in good condtion and works great it has a 3.5in drive and a 5in drive the 5 in drive does have a small crack in it but works fine also comes with original keyboard and 54 5in floppy games and programs 52 of them have been tested and work fine it is all orignal with no repaird or replaces parts and has a memory expansion card in it i wanted to sell it and was wouldering what would be a good price on it? should i sell everything together or seprate?
 
A complete working system with all original documentation and software is always worth more. I checked ebay and see some selling between $35.00 to $450.00 depending on condition, full or part of a system and age. The older the better. Original software with Apple labels is worth more too. You can't sell copies on ebay. Get some pictures of the system together for the apple collectors here to look at. Original boxes help ad value too.
 
i do not have any of the paperwork or boxes but i do know its is a early production model 80's i think the condition is great no cracks or marks it does have a memory expansion card in it it comes with the full system orginal apple startup disk and all the games are original not copys i will post some pics tomarrow if its is a 80s model how can i tell? and will that make it worth more?
 
The year won't make much of a difference in price, a IIgs is a IIgs but they can have different rom sets which do adjust the functionality. It's a tough one to predict. In general I wouldn't expect more than $100 but if it's all the same to you and you're not using it then that's still $100 you didn't have earlier. If I'm low or wrong then even better of course ;-) The ones that go for more tend to have a large/uncommon memory expansion size card (4MB I think is the rare one) or a hard to find SCSI card, etc. Most games are pretty common and also don't have much value, but everything adds to the sale. If you do list all the games then if one of them was rare or uncommon that would also help boost the sale when folks figure it out. Surprisingly not much goes unfound these days. I've seen some auctions that had a hidden uncommon game with a clutter of common crap and it looked like noone was going to notice but sure enough, last 10 minutes the auction ended up a hundred over what I would have thought.

The best advice is to list things, take lots of pictures, and if it works take pictures of it working. Always makes an easy sale vs the turned off as-is systems that you have to take a chance on.
 
barythrin said:
The year won't make much of a difference in price, a IIgs is a IIgs but they can have different rom sets which do adjust the functionality. It's a tough one to predict. In general I wouldn't expect more than $100 but if it's all the same to you and you're not using it then that's still $100 you didn't have earlier. If I'm low or wrong then even better of course ;-) The ones that go for more tend to have a large/uncommon memory expansion size card (4MB I think is the rare one) or a hard to find SCSI card, etc. Most games are pretty common and also don't have much value, but everything adds to the sale. If you do list all the games then if one of them was rare or uncommon that would also help boost the sale when folks figure it out. Surprisingly not much goes unfound these days. I've seen some auctions that had a hidden uncommon game with a clutter of common crap and it looked like noone was going to notice but sure enough, last 10 minutes the auction ended up a hundred over what I would have thought.

The best advice is to list things, take lots of pictures, and if it works take pictures of it working. Always makes an easy sale vs the turned off as-is systems that you have to take a chance on.
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quickflash
measure works
student stories
first-letter fun
odell lake
those amazing reading machines 2
conquering fractions
mystery matter
puzzle tanks
fractio practise unlimted
exploring gas laws
spellvator
weeds to treescircus math
puzzles and posters
the oregon trails side 1
multiplication puzzles
the market place
invisible bugs
lables,letters,and lists
mecc graph
mecc information manager side 1
mecc right smart
mecc dataquest the presidents, side 1
subtraction puzzles
mecc stuff and fetch
mecc graphing primer
time navigation, side 1
the oregon trail side 1
mastering math diagnostic system
lunar greenhouse
mecc dataquest the world community
mystery matter
those amazing reading machines 3
phonics prime time:intial consonate
fraction concepts, inc.
thos amazing reading machines 5
wood car rally
money works
all of them are in white sleaves and say:copyright MECC,macomb city luth 89-0 michigan i am guessing thay

came out of a school? the years range from 1983-1989 i tested them all and all work fine
 
I can't really speak to the worth of the games, but growing up in Minnesota, I have played a lot of MECC games in my school days (MECC=Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium/Corporation). I will leave software pricing to someone else.

I have bought, refurbished, and sold a lot of IIgs's in the past few years and I can speak to the worth of the hardware. The hardware inside your IIgs would be the real determination of value for the system. A stock ROM1 with 256K ram and no expansion cards is only worth about $25-50 at most, a ROM3 with 1MB maybe $50-75 tops. If you have a 256k-1mb card its worth about $10-25, a 4MB ram card its probably worth about $50-100, SCSI card $150-300 (depending on model), and the ultimate would be if you have a TransWarpGS card (CPU accelerator) those I have seen sell as high as $500 (but they are also exceedingly rare). You may be better off selling expansion cards, if any, separate, it seems a fully loaded GS will NOT usually sell for the sum of its parts, you might only get $500 for a fully loaded 4mb, SCSI, TransWarpGS expanded system, and you might get as much as $800-1000 if you parted the same out.

Over all condition will also effect the price, if its got school markings carved into the side, that will detract from the value (lots of schools carved, or otherwise permanently marked asset info into their computers for tracking if it were ever stolen).
 
so does being learning programs make them worth less? i mean i am not sure i want to sell it but if a did what would be a good asking price for all 54 of the games? i am cleaning the setup now since it was in a garage it was very dirty on the outside but nearly spotless on the inside i will post some pics of it soon i know with game consoles liek atari learning games are worth less but i am thinking because they are licenced for a certain school would that appeal to a collector?
 
jeff0172 said:
so does being learning programs make them worth less? i mean i am not sure i want to sell it but if a did what would be a good asking price for all 54 of the games? i am cleaning the setup now since it was in a garage it was very dirty on the outside but nearly spotless on the inside i will post some pics of it soon i know with game consoles liek atari learning games are worth less but i am thinking because they are licenced for a certain school would that appeal to a collector?
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I honestly don't know the value of the software, but I would bet if you listed each title starting at $1 in an auction format, the market would drive the prices right to what its worth, and you would probably get a few dollars on the low side to maybe quite a bit more if it is some either rare, or super popular, sought after title.
 
jeff0172 said:
it also does have the 256k-1mb card in it how can i find out what rom it is?
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On bootup it should say ROM1 or ROM3 on the screen, if it doesn't say either you may have a rare (but not worth much) ROM0. Most ROM0's were sent back for free upgrades to ROM1, the ROM0 will not run GSOS or most IIgs applications, you might find a collector who wants a ROM0, but it wont bring in any more money than a ROM1 or ROM3 since its not a terribly desirable model.

EDIT, you can also press Ctrl-Option-Apple-ESC to bring up the "Control Panel" and that will show you the TOTAL amount of RAM that is installed in one of the menus, I don't recall off hand if it tells you the ROM version however.
 
so like list the games seprate at 1.00 ea and the system with the monitor keyboard and drives for 50.00? i cleaned it and it looks brand new now with only a few scuffs and no cracks other than the one drive but its not big can be repaired with the startup disk? and then i would prob list the memory expansion card seprate idk if i wana sell it lol i am kinda haveing fun with it. the oregon trails game is cool
 
jeff0172 said:
so like list the games seprate at 1.00 ea and the system with the monitor keyboard and drives for 50.00? i cleaned it and it looks brand new now with only a few scuffs and no cracks other than the one drive but its not big can be repaired with the startup disk? and then i would prob list the memory expansion card seprate idk if i wana sell it lol i am kinda haveing fun with it. the oregon trails game is cool
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I don't think I would list a 256k-1mb card separate, that wont net you too much, if any more, its the 4mb cards that would really net you more money sold separate. You can probably get $50-100 for a ROM1 IIgs with the 1mb card in it with disk drives and keyboard. When I said a ROM1 was worth $25-50 that was JUST the computer, add in your disk drives and keyboard/mouse and $50-100 is probably the ballpark you are looking at for the package, maybe even more since you could show photos that its working.

EDIT: I should note if you are listing this on ebay, your feedback history can have a large effect on the prices you can get, if you don't have a lot of feedback that will scare away some buyers from bidding big, shouldn't hurt too much on small dollar items like the software, but it could really hurt your chances of getting top dollar on the system itself. The prices I listed assume you have decent feedback history.
 
RWallmow said:
I don't think I would list a 256k-1mb card separate, that wont net you too much, if any more, its the 4mb cards that would really net you more money sold separate. You can probably get $50-100 for a ROM1 IIgs with the 1mb card in it with disk drives and keyboard. When I said a ROM1 was worth $25-50 that was JUST the computer, add in your disk drives and keyboard/mouse and $50-100 is probably the ballpark you are looking at for the package, maybe even more since you could show photos that its working.

EDIT: I should note if you are listing this on ebay, your feedback history can have a large effect on the prices you can get, if you don't have a lot of feedback that will scare away some buyers from bidding big, shouldn't hurt too much on small dollar items like the software, but it could really hurt your chances of getting top dollar on the system itself. The prices I listed assume you have decent feedback history.
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yes my ebay feedback is perfect with 5 star dsr's i have been selling on ebay for more then 5 years
 
Unless your IIGS is complete with its original boxes or has SCSI, 4MB+ RAM cards, or accelerator cards, it's probably not worth much, under $100. The IIGS is pretty much common as dirt in the states.
 
Here's a few other things to consider:

First, you should do a search of eBay for all current listings for the IIGS to see what the current price range is. Then do the same search for Completed listings to see what recent sales went for, and look at each system that sold to see it's condition & what exactly was included. Keep in mind that on eBay, not only is the current competition important but, maybe moreso, timing is critical - you need to be selling on eBay just when some folks are desperate to get exactly what you're offering. I just saw today an item that was listed for one price, the auction expired, the same item was listed for more & sold right away at the higher price. Its all about the timing.

How quickly do you want to unload your's? If you're willing to wait, you can get a higher price. But if you're desperate for the money (or to free up valuable space at home, etc.) you will need to drop the price to reach all the chintzy buyers or resellers.

The ROM03 systems generally get more than ROM01 or ROM0, since ROM03 is required to run GSOS and the ROM03 boards came with 1.25 MG installed.

Take the time to CLEAN your system thoroughly and take good, clear photos to display. Most sellers on eBay just want to dump their items and heaven forbid they should clean them up a bit. Cosmetics DO matter quite a bit.

If you have the original boxes & packing materials, original disks and manuals you can command considerably more than if you don't. Serious collectors need to have the box, original packing and all the included paperwork. For example, a complete in-the-box IIGS that is in mint condition will fetch the most. The same but incomplete IIGS (missing paperwork & disks, for example) in it's original box comes in 2nd. The same IIGS in a retail box other than it's original box (that is, the serial number on the box does not match the serial number on the unit itself) is 3rd, and so on...

What does your S&H include? Mine includes the eBay handling fees, PayPal handling fees, packing materials & of course the FedEx or USPS shipping fees. Thus my S&H fees are higher than normal, and that limits your market. If you are willing to bury the high eBay fees (9-12% including the S&H) and PayPal fees (3%) into the price of the item, you're S&H is lower & that does have a positive effect on buyers.

Are you willing to ship outside the USA? If so, you're market is increased... but of course S&H is considerably more (you pass that on to the customer, one way or the other) but more importantly, there are a LOT of downsides to shipping overseas: length of time to delivery (so your buyer can slam you on your feedback), there may be customs forms to complete &/or fees to be paid, and there are more of the Nigerian Banker scammers out there to contend with. I restrict my sales to North America, which limits your potential market.

One final thought for now - if you list it as "untested" you might as well list it as "broken and does not work". Seems to mean the same thing on eBay.

I've been restoring/reselling Apple II computers for a number of years now, and I have gotten the full range of prices for IIGS units, all depending upon their condition, how they are outfitted and pure luck of timing. You've already seen the comments about parting your system out, but I watch these things very closely and I doubt you will get more by selling your system piecemeal providing your have an intact system in good condition and you take the time to clean it up & thoroughly test it out. And it takes longer to sell pieces. The market it flooded with IIGS base units sans keyboards, mice, cards, etc. People buying pieces are either looking to replace a broken piece or, more often than not on eBay, looking to build a system for cheap.

Ken
www.Apple2Online.com
 
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