Rare Apple-1 to be auctioned off this month for expected $261K to $392K
One of only six known working Apple-1 computers will be put up for auction later this month by German auction house Breker, which expects the unit to fetch between $261,000 and $392,000.
Source: Auction Team Breker
Spotted by Computerworld, the vintage Apple-1 will be up for bids on May 25 and includes the original manual, as well as a letter signed by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. Sotheby's estimates that only 50 of the 200 original units exist worldwide, and only six of those are in working condition.
In the letter from Jobs, written to the computer's original owner Fred Hatfield, the late tech guru offered to exchange the Apple-1 for an Apple II 4K motherboard for an extra $400. When the Apple-1 board was introduced in 1976, it sold for $666.66.
Also of interest to would-be buyers is the mark of cofounder Steve Wozniak, who apparently signed the back of the circuit board as "Woz."
Vintage Apple machines are seeing a renaissance in the European auction market, which in December sold a similar Apple-1 for a record breaking $640,000. Breker was also the auctioneer of that sale. In June of 2012, another working example was sold for $375,000, while a unit in "superb" condition managed to net $174,000 in 2010.
Breker has posted a video on YouTube to prove that the unit is in operational order:
Source: Auction Team Breker
Spotted by Computerworld, the vintage Apple-1 will be up for bids on May 25 and includes the original manual, as well as a letter signed by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. Sotheby's estimates that only 50 of the 200 original units exist worldwide, and only six of those are in working condition.
In the letter from Jobs, written to the computer's original owner Fred Hatfield, the late tech guru offered to exchange the Apple-1 for an Apple II 4K motherboard for an extra $400. When the Apple-1 board was introduced in 1976, it sold for $666.66.
Also of interest to would-be buyers is the mark of cofounder Steve Wozniak, who apparently signed the back of the circuit board as "Woz."
Vintage Apple machines are seeing a renaissance in the European auction market, which in December sold a similar Apple-1 for a record breaking $640,000. Breker was also the auctioneer of that sale. In June of 2012, another working example was sold for $375,000, while a unit in "superb" condition managed to net $174,000 in 2010.
Breker has posted a video on YouTube to prove that the unit is in operational order:
Comments
That's cheaper than a coffee.
Back in the day I was gonna buy one of those but a friend cautioned me off, telling me to wait because Apple will be coming out with one with a chassis that you can add memory and other cards to the mother board.
Well today I sold a broken Roland Jupiter 6 for $1600 bought from a car boot sale for $10! I was pretty happy with the markup on that
Wish you could click-zoom that first image though.
Originally Posted by drblank
This one looks like it's in close to mint condition. But $400K? That's a little steep.
For the first pre-modern personal computer? When only 200 ever existed, only 50 are left, and only 6 work? I don't think so.
A prototype Mac 128k, in my opinion, should go for 10x that.
Meanwhile, one of the first Dell computers is available at your local Goodwill store for $2.95.
Originally Posted by Totems
That's a huge variance between minimum estimation and maximum
Maybe they've learned from auctioning an hour with Tim Cook for an estimated $50,000.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
I'm sick and tired of AppleInsider posting these obvious flame bait articles to attract the TRS-80 and Commodore fanboys.
They're journalists, man. What do you expect?
Who cares? Atari made the only computers worth mentioning anyway!
I'm so tired of everyone thinking Apple's innovative...
What kind of people buy these kind of stuff by paying such a huge money? Just asking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chandra69
What kind of people buy these kind of stuff by paying such a huge money? Just asking.
Super rich people who can drop a million bucks and not notice it (if you're a billionaire your network is fluxuating by tens of millions of dollars a day, so why sweat a million bucks?) and a) either are big Apple (or computer history) fans and/or b) calculate that they can probably auction it off in the future for even more money (probably not a bad guess; the supply of these aren't going up). This probably makes more sense financially than the coffee with Cook. (Ok, the CwC is tax deductable and has a one in million chance of changing your life, but you can't resell it.)
It depends, if you're reasonably successful with a business, an advise session with Cook might help catapult your business to something much larger.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
It depends, if you're reasonably successful with a business, an advise session with Cook might help catapult your business to something much larger.
Right. I put the odds of that occurring at approximately a million to 1. Having Cook as a mentor that you could talk to for a few hours over an extended period of time could be very valuable for the right kind of person. I just have a hard time seeing what spark of brilliance that Cook could deliver in 30-60 minutes. For the same money, one could hire a few different experts to discuss your issues/questions/ideas in detail--with them doing some prep work to understand what you're trying to accomplish. That's not what Cook is "selling." Just as an example, suppose you are considering starting a production line in China. Obviously Cook has some some great insight into this and could discuss it over coffee. Alternatively, and for less money, you could pay directly for this advice from any number of people and get real numbers, and contacts, and supporting documents, etc., etc. This is a vanity purchase. Nothing wrong with that, but I find it hard to believe that anyone will "get their money back" from this chat with Cook (nor do I expect that the winner will expect that; the picture on their wall of the two together will be the prize they are seeking).