Extremely Rare Pristine Commodore C65 Prototype Hits eBay For Big Bucks
Recently, another Commodore 65 prototype has popped on eBay's UK website. The system itself is said to be in "perfect shape" with no signs of yellowing or scratches on the enclosure. More importantly, the system is fully functional in its current state with a working disk drive and audio output. This particular Commodore 65 unit is being sold with a copy of the manual and Euro-spec power supply (which North American bidders should take note off immediately).
The seller has even posted a little backstory on the machine, writing:
The machine was bought around 95 from "Sandinge's Import & Data", Stefan Sandinge who started that company managed to buy a small batch (around 10pcs) of Commodore 65's, which he then sold pretty quickly after he made an ad in the swedish C64 magazine "Åtta bitar" (eight bits)... I don't remember the exact price for the Commodore 65, but it was something between 250 and 400 Euros.
At this point, the Commodore 65 is currently at £13,143.69 after four bids, or roughly $17,100. On top of that, shipping charges tack on another £172.36 ($225). The eBay auction, which you can find here, ends in about 9 days.
For those that need a refresher, the Commodore 65 was manufactured from 1990 through 1991, although it's reported that less than 200 actually made it off the assembly line. The machine features a 3.54MHz CSG 4510 processor with a VIC-III graphics card (1280x400 supported). The standard memory configuration was 128KB, although it could max out at 8MB.
As we mentioned in our previous article, be sure to check out this site for some great information on the Commodore 65, aka C65 or C64DX.