Error in Pre-Black Friday Sales Ad Shaves $705 Off New iMac;
Prices on 'Wall Street' Hit Rock Bottom (But Not Due to Above)
| by Joe Leo, Columnist |
MARKET PLUNGE: Take the plunge and get everyday "Cyber Monday" type deals by doing your online bargain hunting on eBay. The only way this "Wallstreet" PowerBook G3 would have been $29.99 during its release is if the stock market took a plunge back in 1998! [GRAPHIC: ©2007, eBay (screenshot)]
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Of course, you can imagine how crummy we felt, not having seen that ad, when one of the "daily rituals" in the morning is checking the Fry's Electronics ad which appears every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week, searching for any hot deals on technology and the like.
Though it was an off-day sale which occurred on a Tuesday, and we don't normally check for ads on that day, so can you blame anyone? And even if we had checked that ad and gone in that evening--as we said, we had originally intended to make a trip over there--the price wouldn't have been valid anymore. So, go figure.
Heck, the "new" 15-inch PowerBook G4 that this columnist procured off of eBay just the week before last was purchased for $620. A new desktop, a brand new Intel-based iMac with Leopard and iLife '08 installed for only $159 more? Click the "Buy it Now" button already!!
And there ends the story of the biggest deal of the century, the Black Friday sale, well, pre-Black Friday, you (we) all missed and are still contemplating how it happened.
But, you can always wait, oh, say, ten years from now and go on to eBay and find that 20-inch aluminum iMac for a bargain basement price, right? At this time last week, we were telling you about how to get Black Friday style deals by getting a "new" Mac on eBay for rock bottom prices compared to when they were actually selling new.
If you have that kind of patience--waiting for a decade (yeah right)--you can take solace in the fact that even though you missed out on the Fry's Electronics one day only sale, or are miffed that your city/state doesn't have a Fry's store anywhere nearby, there's always eBay!
While nothing beats getting a brand new, never been opened and new-sealed-in-box aluminum Intel iMac with a 20-inch screen from a major electronics retail chain for prices that can only be found in Apple's Special Deals section for similar but refurbished units, the next item we showcase will make prices on Wall Street hit rock bottom.
Not literally, but at the same time, literally. What are we talking about? A Wallstreet PowerBook from 1998 that puts the One Laptop Per Child notebook PC to shame.
A couple of months ago, we came across a used PowerBook G3, "Wallstreet" version (1998 model... the 1999 model a "Lombard" and the 2000 model a "Pismo"), selling for only $29.99! These laptop computers were the penultimate in Apple's PowerBook line.
At an original price of $3499, but for argument's sake, let's say $2999 "on sale" later down the road, ten years later, you can get a somewhat well-equipped road warrior machine for mobile computing on-the-go for the bargain basement price of $29.99... a savings of 99% off the original sticker price! Really one ups Windows Vista huh? ("Wow.")
The ultimate post-Cyber Monday style deal you missed out on... a price you'll only find online and on eBay, albeit a decade later.
. . .
(Anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area who's reading this and is one of those who got an aluminum iMac for that rock bottom Wall Street-closing price, please write in! We'd like to hear about your experience and how easy--or difficult--it was to procure your cheap new Mac!).