An Apple IIc, still in the original packaging, recently sold on eBay for $2553:

“When this auction came along, I knew I had to have it,” [Dan] Budiac said in an interview. “The prospect of unboxing a mint, 20-year-old computer was simply too good to pass up.”

And he did unbox it, even though that undoubtedly sent the value to collectors plummeting:

“Ultimately, I decided that I didn’t buy it as a financial investment. I bought it so I could stay up until 4 o’clock in the morning playing Oregon Trail.”

I had an Apple IIc myself in the mid-1980s, and I gave it away eight or nine years ago, finally convincing myself I really wasn’t ever going to go back and play the old Infocom text adventure games again, which was about the only thing I could think of that I might want to do with it. Never seemed enough of a reason to take precious desk space away from my current equipment.

It was a great computer, though, very elegantly designed, and I got a lot of writing done on it, including the book and lyrics to All’s Fair, my second completed musical and my first real (if very small) production. The IIc was my main personal computer for four or five years, till I scraped together the cash for a Mac SE in ’89.