My first digital camera was a Sony Mavica FD5. It had a resolution of 640×480 pixels, and saved images on 3.5″ floppy disks. (Remember those?) I could get twenty to thirty images on one disk, if I recall correctly; I had a little belt case that would hold 10 disks, and I’d swap them out like film cartridges.

Here’s one of the pictures I took with it:

Please note: this is not resized; this is the resolution at which it came from the camera.

It was taken the day my eldest son learned to stand up. He never really pulled himself up on things; he just stood up, like you see in the pictures. (Note to baby-snatchers: don’t come looking for him, he’s in High School now.) A delightful memory, but the image quality is nothing to write home about. Or perhaps it is: “Hey, Mom, you won’t believe how bad these pictures look….”

The camera cost me lots of money, and I loved it and enjoyed it immensely.

Out of curiosity, I decided to take a look and see if anybody had an FD5 for sale at Amazon, and what the asking prices were like. I don’t want to buy one; I still have mine, though I haven’t used it in over ten years. But I thought to myself, you know, it might be a collector’s item. It was Sony’s first floppy disk camera, sold when the industry was young; it has historical interest; maybe it’s worth something.

And, it turns out, it is. If you want to get your very own Sony Mavica FD5, known to work as recently as 2009, you can order one for the rock-bottom price of $24.99. Yes, you heard me right: 24 dollars and 99 cents.

Oh, and $5.99 shipping.

Don’t delay, they are selling like hotcakes.