Rare functional Apple I computer up for auction on eBay, 10% of sale price goes to charity
A fully functional Apple I computer built in 1976 with add-ons like an original Apple I cassette interface board is currently being auctioned off on eBay, with a portion of the final sale price earmarked for charity.
Dubbed the "Copson Apple I" after original owner and former Apple employee Joe Copson, the machine up for sale originally hit the auction block at Christie's in 2012. The machine never sold, however, as bids failed to meet reserve.
Although exact dates cannot be confirmed, the Copson Apple I is claimed to be older than a version that fetched a record $905,000 at auction last October. That particular model was purchased by the Henry Ford organization for display at its Dearborn, Mich., museum.
The Copson machine is largely unchanged from the day it left storied computer store Byte Shop, though the original owner appears to have added an Apple I cassette interface to the board. It is now listed as being in working condition, meaning repairs were performed since the Christie's sale. The board comes mounted in a clamshell case with Datanetics keyboard and includes a period correct Sony TV and replica Apple I instruction manual signed by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak.
With Apple's ascension from late cofounder Steve Jobs' garage to the most valuable corporation on earth, collectors have scrambled to get their hands on the company's first product. The most recent auction failed to meet expectations, however, and sold for $365,000 in December, lower than estimates of $600,000 on the high end.
Jobs and Wozniak built a total of 200 Apple I computers starting in 1976, each selling for an initial price of $666.66 without power supply, display, keyboard or housing. As of this writing, the Copson Apple I auction has a high bid of $20,600 with nine days to go.
Dubbed the "Copson Apple I" after original owner and former Apple employee Joe Copson, the machine up for sale originally hit the auction block at Christie's in 2012. The machine never sold, however, as bids failed to meet reserve.
Although exact dates cannot be confirmed, the Copson Apple I is claimed to be older than a version that fetched a record $905,000 at auction last October. That particular model was purchased by the Henry Ford organization for display at its Dearborn, Mich., museum.
The Copson machine is largely unchanged from the day it left storied computer store Byte Shop, though the original owner appears to have added an Apple I cassette interface to the board. It is now listed as being in working condition, meaning repairs were performed since the Christie's sale. The board comes mounted in a clamshell case with Datanetics keyboard and includes a period correct Sony TV and replica Apple I instruction manual signed by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak.
With Apple's ascension from late cofounder Steve Jobs' garage to the most valuable corporation on earth, collectors have scrambled to get their hands on the company's first product. The most recent auction failed to meet expectations, however, and sold for $365,000 in December, lower than estimates of $600,000 on the high end.
Jobs and Wozniak built a total of 200 Apple I computers starting in 1976, each selling for an initial price of $666.66 without power supply, display, keyboard or housing. As of this writing, the Copson Apple I auction has a high bid of $20,600 with nine days to go.
Comments
And, in 1978, I could have bought a working Apple I for $250 from Bob Moody at the Byte Shop of Palo Alto ...
I don't have one of these, but I do have some DIP 6502 processor somewhere. Any one want to offer me a kings ransom for one?
You will take a peasants ransom and like it! Heres, $5, $6...hold on, checking other pockets...got $9.15! Sold!!!
Done, although a ransoms were never paid for peasants, so they were never nabbed. Shame that original BBC computers (also 6502) are worth bugger all, even though the design team (some from Atom) went on from 6502 to the ARM core used in almost all mobile
Woz signing something isn't hard, he'll sign anything.
Yes and if you had heard that he refused to sign something, I'm sure you'd write a post putting him down for that.
Uh, okay?
You do realize SignedByWoz exists, right?
LOL
Touché.
I should get over to eBay and bid $100,000 for it. I know it won't be close to the winning bid, but at least I get to say that I once bid $100,000 for an item but got out bid.
And if by chance I do win, I'll just sell some of my AAPL. I'm sure $100,000 for an Apple l would be a better investment that $100,000 worth of AAPL.
And if by chance I do win, I'll just sell some of my AAPL. I'm sure $100,000 for an Apple l would be a better investment that $100,000 worth of AAPL.
OK. I believe you.
OK. I believe you.
You really don't have to. But if you think about it. $100,000 of AAPL now, is about 800 shares of AAPL. That's about 115 shares before the 7:1 split. That's about 57 shares of AAPL before the 2:1 split in 2005. That's only about 30 shares of AAPL before the 2:1 split in 2000. And that's just comes to about $600 if you bought AAPL at around $20 at the time Jobs came back in 1997. I know it's hard to think about affording 800 shares of AAPL now or even 115 shares a few years ago. But there are some of us on this forum that bought and held on to some AAPL since 1997 (or before the 2000 split). Even if it wasn't a lot of shares (or money) back then, it makes for a very nice retirement account now. For us, it's not a matter of …… I could kick myself for not buying shares of AAPL back in 1997 ….. but …….. I could kick myself for not buying more shares of AAPL back in 1997. But at least I did buy more than 30 shares. (I think it's true that investors likes to buy shares of stocks in blocks of 100 or $1000 increments.
) And lucky to never have gotten into a predicament where I needed to sell all my shares.
Had I bought AAPL stock instead I'd have $50,000.
Uh, okay?
You do realize SignedByWoz exists, right?
These days it might be harder to find an Apple I *not* signed by Woz.