Netscape Memorabilia Collector Guide

Why collectors look for Netscape

Netscape Communications made Navigator, which the federal court in United States v. Microsoft described as the first widely popular graphical web browser distributed for profit. After Netscape released it on December 15, 1994, consumers were soon using Navigator far more than any other browser.

The company is also a business-history landmark. Its 1995 stock offering helped set off the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, and the court’s findings devote whole sections to Microsoft’s response to Navigator. Netscape objects connect those stories to things a collector can hold: retail software boxes, manuals, company shirts and the dinosaur mascot that became the face of mozilla.org.

A short history for dating Netscape items

Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark founded the company on April 4, 1994 as Mosaic Communications Corp., later renamed Netscape Communications Corp. Andreessen had developed web-browsing software at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, and Clark had co-founded Silicon Graphics. Original items printed with the Mosaic Communications name come from before the rename.

Navigator reached the market in December 1994. On August 9, 1995, Netscape offered 5 million shares on NASDAQ at $28 each, although it had not yet turned a profit. An order imbalance held up trading for nearly two hours; the stock opened at $71 and closed the day at $58.25.

Microsoft introduced Internet Explorer in July 1995. The court later found that Microsoft’s deals with internet access providers caused Internet Explorer’s usage share to surge and Navigator’s to plummet. In January 1998, Netscape began distributing Navigator and its Communicator suite with no licensing fees, and announced plans to release the Communicator source code through a new site, mozilla.org.

On November 24, 1998, AOL agreed to acquire Netscape for $4.3 billion worth of AOL stock, and the acquisition was completed in 1999. Netscape 6, released in 2000, was the first Netscape-branded browser built on Mozilla code, and an independent foundation was created in 2003 to continue that open-source work. On December 28, 2007, AOL announced it would end development of Netscape browsers and recommended Firefox. After a one-month extension, support ended on March 1, 2008.

What collectors find

Museum collections show what Netscape and its partners actually produced. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California holds boxed software, manuals and company apparel, and the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge, UK holds a third-party Navigator bundle. The main categories are these:

• Boxed Navigator software: the Computer History Museum has separate Navigator Personal Edition boxes for Windows 95 and 3.1 and for Macintosh, plus a 1996 Personal Edition package that still includes its getting started guide, quick reference card, license agreement, rebate coupon, registration card, coupon offers and promotion cards.
• Manuals and media: a 1995 Navigator set in the same collection contains the handbook, quick reference cards, a UNIX CD and 3.5-inch floppy disks for Windows and Macintosh.
• Bundled editions: Navigator also reached buyers inside other companies’ packages, such as EasySurf with Netscape Navigator 2.0, a Windows 3.1 CD-ROM published by GT Interactive and packaged with an internet account.
• Company apparel: the museum’s shirts include one printed simply with “Netscape,” a gift of Esther Dyson; a “Mardi Gras Madness” shirt with a jester on the back; a Netscape Internet Learning Academy shirt; and a pullover reading “Customer Support & Satisfaction” with “NETSCAPE” on the back.
• AOL co-branding: two “Rock the Web” shirts in the collection carry both AOL and Netscape names or logos.
• Mozilla mascot items: Mozilla was the internal name for the browser, and a cartoon dinosaur drawn by Dave Titus served as its logo and mascot in Netscape’s early years. For the 1998 launch of mozilla.org, Jamie Zawinski, a member of Netscape’s founding team, commissioned new dinosaur artwork from Shepard Fairey, and mozilla.org gave away a CD at its first anniversary party in 1999.
• Paper and promotional material: packages carried advertising inserts, such as the coupons and a Shiva remote access advertising card in a 1995 Personal Edition package at the museum. Netscape’s 1995 annual report, which pictured Andreessen and Clark, is part of the same paper trail.

How to place an item in time

Names, partners and version numbers do most of the dating work. Mosaic Communications branding predates the rename. Items that pair Netscape with AOL reflect the acquisition agreed in November 1998. For software, AOL’s 2007 support notice listed the browser line as versions 1 through 4.x, then 6, 7, 8 and 9; Netscape 6 and later were Mozilla-based releases from the AOL years.

The Mozilla mascot has its own timeline. Zawinski writes that the early Dave Titus lizard appeared all over Netscape’s website before the marketing department removed it, and that Toho, owner of the Godzilla franchise, contested the Mozilla trademark before settling once it saw how small the T-shirt sales were. The Shepard Fairey dinosaur belongs to mozilla.org, from its 1998 launch onward.

What to check before buying

A listing title is not evidence. Ask for clear photographs of every label, panel and insert, and compare them with the documented museum examples before relying on words such as original or employee issue.

• Platform and part number: the museum’s Windows 95 and 3.1 box carries part number 150-03162-00 and its Macintosh box carries 150-02053-00, so the printed platform and numbers should match the seller’s description.
• Completeness: original packages held more than a disk. Check for the guide, quick reference card, license, registration card and promotional inserts, and price a box without them accordingly.
• Media: look for cracked floppy shutters, scratched CDs and missing labels, and do not assume decades-old disks still read.
• Shirt labels: the museum’s Netscape shirts use Hanes, Oneita and Fruit of the Loom blanks, and its pullover a Port Authority blank. Read the garment label, and treat a shirt on an unidentified or recent blank as a later print unless the seller can show otherwise.
• Later chapters: Mozilla Foundation material, which postdates the foundation’s creation in 2003, and anything tied to AOL’s later Netscape.com portal can be collectible, but neither is a product of the independent company.
• Provenance: an employee or launch-party story adds value only with something checkable, such as a badge, photograph, event program or letter.
• Condition: note box crushing, sun fading, stains, cracked prints, odors and missing inserts, and judge the item on what the photographs show.

Where to find Netscape memorabilia now

With the company absorbed into AOL and its browsers retired, original Netscape-era objects circulate on the secondary market. The Netscape company page on I ♥ Capitalism collects live, relevance-checked resale listings and links each one to the marketplace selling it. Inventory changes whenever sellers add or remove an item. For reference, the Computer History Museum’s online catalog is a useful place to compare a box or shirt against a documented example.