Sometimes i look at ebays offers, just for fun. I won't buy cards there, because i have very low salary compared to usual western standarts. It's still fun watching some unique cards, you can find there. And often nowhere else. So take this article as buyers guide to interesting cards too expensive for me, but maybe i will inspire other collectors for some nice buy. Lets have look at these beauties....

And i start with really rare and very expensive card Evans & Sutherland OPENSIM 4000Q. Seller from Israel wants for this 3 plane monster $360 including postage cost. Auction link is here.  Google won't find much usefull info and not even single whole card photo. So rich buyer will have something really unique. Card is based on four REALimage 4000 chips and produces twice the subpixel antialiased fill rate (compared to basic OPENsim 4000d) , or 460 Megapixels per second. Its one of latest cards ever produced by Evans & Sutherland, before they ended with graphics business. Don't know sell price at time of introduce, but entry level systems with card OPENsim 4000d was priced at $13,000. Little more info can be found at press release. Systems were based on win 2000, so there's chance of finding some drivers.

Not much cheaper is Intergraph Intense 3D Pro 3400 GA Geometry and Lighting Accelerator sold by IBM for their IntelliStation professional workstations in 1998. This unusual looking card is sold by someone from USA for $241. Again no photos and info online. But card is really expensive and its only accelerator for use with Intense 3D Pro 3400 card. It may maybe work with some other similar models.

Another nice, but too high priced item is HP VISUALIZE FX4+ with texture accelerator module. Very rare item and seller from Bulgaria seems to know it. He wants for card "only" $358. Texture accelerator is rare, but also really slow (if i remember correctly its something on level S3 Virge = half of Voodoo 1) and drivers for this card are not quite compactible with usual testing systems. I found only WinNt4, they can be forced into Win XP, but are not fully working (mising control panels...).

Much better price have HP Visualize Fx4 Pro from USA seller. $16.65 isn't much, but postage $49.45 is quite high. Another one can be found here for $29.99 (without postage). But also from USA.

Another not common card is Accel Graphics AG300. Very early card from 1995. In this case also with original drivers and manual from USA seller. More info can be found in palcals article. But price is also high -  $118. 

Theres also lot of 3Dlabs profi cards with some nice prices, but postage isn't nice on those. 3DLabs Oxygen GVX210 for $29.95, Wildcat Realizm 100 AGP8x 256Mb for £50 (UK), Wildcat II 5110 for £34 or 64MB GVX1 Pro from USA for $41. And much more like this.

Lets go look for something older. What about Quadcolor 1 ISA card from USA for $70. And it looks in much better shape than mine card.

hd6845pf

---

Chips 65535 on ISA bus with old lcd panels interface from Germany for EUR 24.00. But only for europe.

Highly overpriced but rare MATROX HIPER+/WIN based on S3 924 from Israel for $171. Acer M3125 EGA/VGA 16bit ISA for $131. And charities supporters can buy Matrox IP-8/AT/1MC 0382-02 ISA Imaging Board for $890 again from Israel. Remember its for good cause (according to price, maybe Bill Gates will be interested  ) . Little less cheaper is same card from USA, but who cares. Its still $566. 

Thats all for tonight. Looks like most oldest cards are too overpriced, but some younger and much more usefull profi cards have nice prices. Next time i try to look also for VL-Bus and PCI items.