A 36-year-old Apple-1 personal computer, one of just six thought to be
in working condition, sold for a record $374,500 at a New York auction.
Also sold by Sotheby's Friday: A memo written by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs during his time at video game maker Atari.
It
may not look like much, but this 1976 Apple-1 computers -- a circuit
board -- just sold for $374,500, a record, at a Sotheby's auction.
(Image: Sotheby's.)
The gavel price for the Apple 1,
which included the buyer's premium -- the commission owed to auctioneer
Sotheby's -- was nearly twice the top estimate of $180,000 and triple
the low-ball prediction of $120,000. (See also "Recreating the Apple-1").
It was a record for an Apple-1, the first computer from the company
co-founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The previous record of $213,000 was set in late 2010 at an auction conducted by Christie's in London.
Friday's price was 76 percent higher than the 2010 Apple-1 sale.
Sotheby's did not reveal the name of the buyer of either the Apple 1 or the memo, and did not reply to questions Friday. The BBC, however, reported that a telephone bidder won the auction for the Apple 1.
The Apple-1, a circuit board hand-built by Apple co-founder Steve
Wozniak, was made in 1976, and sold at the time for $666.66. About 200
units were produced, but by Sotheby's estimate, only 50 survive. Six,
including the one sold Friday, are known to be in working condition.
(See also "The Most Collectible PCs of All Time.")
Included with the Apple 1 lot was an original cassette interface --
cassette tapes were used to store programs and data -- and several
manuals, including a rare BASIC user's manual.
The four-page Jobs-authored memo sold for $27,500, also significantly higher than the auction house's preliminary estimate of $10,000 to $15,000.
Steve JobsThat
memorandum and an accompanying one-page addendum were written by Jobs
in 1974 during a short stint with game-maker Atari, and included his
suggestions for improvements on World Cup, a coin arcade game of the
time. The lot featured three original circuit diagrams drawn by Jobs in
pencil and the one-page hand-written addendum.
Although both the Apple 1 and the memo sold for well above their estimates, neither came close to the $1.6 million
paid by a Miami executive last year for the original contract that
marked Apple's founding. Jobs, who died in October 2011, Wozniak and the
lesser-known Ron Wayne drew up the contract in April 1976.
Sotheby's also handled the sale of the Apple contract.
It may not look like much, but this 1976 Apple-1 computers -- a circuit
board -- just sold for $374,500, a record, at a Sotheby's auction.
(Image: Sotheby's.)
Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers
and general technology breaking news for Computerworld.
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