Rare Apple I fetches $471,000 at Christie's auction

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited May 2019
A rare Apple I has fetched roughly $471,000 after selling at auction through Christie's auction house in London.

Rare Apple I
Rare Apple I


The machine was expected to bring in 300,000 to 500,000 pounds ($378,000 to $630,000) prior to the auction on May 23. It fell towards the lower end of the spectrum raking in 371,000 pounds or about $471,000.

This Apple I is unique as it is built into the bottom half of a briefcase. Aside from the briefcase Apple I, the auction also included a modified cassette interface card, Panasonic RQ-309DS cassette tape recorder, SWTPC PR-40 printer alphanumeric printer, Sanyo VM4209 monitor and Motorola M6800 microprocessor.

An Apple I operation manual, original green "Preliminary" Apple BASIC Users manual dated 1976, Apple I manual from 1977 and early schematics papers were all included as documentation.

Other Apple garb includes a slide of Apple's original logo, various documents from the Apple I Owners Club, early computing magazines with article Apple ads and an article penned by co-founder Steve Jobs, a Specimen bond note for Apple Computer, stock certificates from Apple, Atari, Hewlett-Packard and Pixar, a license plate bearing the iconic rainbow-colored Apple logo and business cards of co-founders Jobs, Wozniak and Ron Wayne. The lot also features drawings of the Apple I by Wayne.

The Apple I first went on sale more than forty years ago for $666.66. Of the 200 that were produced, only around 80 are known to still be in existence.

Christie's last auctioned off an Apple I in 2017 where it reached $355,500, just below the latest sale. Previous sales have reached much higher, just shy of a million at $905,000 in 2014.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    charles1charles1 Posts: 78member
    I was particularly intrigued by the SWTPC PR-40 printer, I saw a demo for one at a local Homebrew Computer Club, probably around 1976. It was a unique thermal printer, because it used aluminized thermal paper. The printhead electrodes made contact with the metallized surface and ran a small electric charge through the paper to make the black marks. It is probably impossible to obtain that paper today (or any time in the last 30 years).
    edited May 2019 StrangeDayswatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 13
    1st1st Posts: 443member
    Amazing engineering piece. Need more break through nowadays, not just progressive product. Hopefully, 5G would open the flood gate.  
  • Reply 3 of 13
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,808member
    1st said:
    Amazing engineering piece. Need more break through nowadays, not just progressive product. Hopefully, 5G would open the flood gate.  

    Why would 5G open the flood gate?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 13
    charles1 said:
    I was particularly intrigued by the SWTPC PR-40 printer, I saw a demo for one at a local Homebrew Computer Club, probably around 1976. It was a unique thermal printer, because it used aluminized thermal paper. The printhead electrodes made contact with the metallized surface and ran a small electric charge through the paper to make the black marks. It is probably impossible to obtain that paper today (or any time in the last 30 years).
    Not in the United States, but someone is selling it in India...
    http://www.computechindiapapers.net/metalized-paper-aluminized-paper--1915633.html
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 13
    1st1st Posts: 443member
    macxpress said:
    1st said:
    Amazing engineering piece. Need more break through nowadays, not just progressive product. Hopefully, 5G would open the flood gate.  

    Why would 5G open the flood gate?
    High speed would change everything from ai to robotic etc. It will impact our life more ways than you can imagine.   AI will do the coding and debug itself for one, robotic remote surgery is another, for me, I want holographic 3d Ramon city walk around in my living room. Or mountain climb without any danger. IMHO. 
  • Reply 6 of 13
    charles1charles1 Posts: 78member
    charles1 said:
    I was particularly intrigued by the SWTPC PR-40 printer, I saw a demo for one at a local Homebrew Computer Club, probably around 1976. It was a unique thermal printer, because it used aluminized thermal paper. The printhead electrodes made contact with the metallized surface and ran a small electric charge through the paper to make the black marks. It is probably impossible to obtain that paper today (or any time in the last 30 years).
    Not in the United States, but someone is selling it in India...
    http://www.computechindiapapers.net/metalized-paper-aluminized-paper--1915633.html
    Interesting.. but I don't think this paper would work. The old style paper was more of a dull, matte aluminized surface.
  • Reply 7 of 13
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,877member
    1st said:
    Amazing engineering piece. Need more break through nowadays, not just progressive product. Hopefully, 5G would open the flood gate.  
    That isn’t how mature product categories work, which like cars, desktop computing is. iterative improvement is the name of the game. the low hanging fruit was harvested long ago. 
    edited May 2019 netmagewatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 13
    netmagenetmage Posts: 314member
    1st said:
    macxpress said:
    1st said:
    Amazing engineering piece. Need more break through nowadays, not just progressive product. Hopefully, 5G would open the flood gate.  

    Why would 5G open the flood gate?
    High speed would change everything from ai to robotic etc. It will impact our life more ways than you can imagine.   AI will do the coding and debug itself for one, robotic remote surgery is another, for me, I want holographic 3d Ramon city walk around in my living room. Or mountain climb without any danger. IMHO. 
    None of that requires 5G or will be helped by it. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 13
    1st said:
    macxpress said:
    1st said:
    Amazing engineering piece. Need more break through nowadays, not just progressive product. Hopefully, 5G would open the flood gate.  

    Why would 5G open the flood gate?
    High speed would change everything from ai to robotic etc. It will impact our life more ways than you can imagine.   AI will do the coding and debug itself for one, robotic remote surgery is another, for me, I want holographic 3d Ramon city walk around in my living room. Or mountain climb without any danger. IMHO. 
    It’s great that you are so positive about the future. I also want autonomous space robots mining for diamonds on planets orbiting distant neutron stars. But nothing of that has much to do with 5G. It’s a telecom standard. Just saying… 🦄
    netmagedesignrwatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 13
    1st1st Posts: 443member
    netmage said:
    1st said:
    macxpress said:
    1st said:
    Amazing engineering piece. Need more break through nowadays, not just progressive product. Hopefully, 5G would open the flood gate.  

    Why would 5G open the flood gate?
    High speed would change everything from ai to robotic etc. It will impact our life more ways than you can imagine.   AI will do the coding and debug itself for one, robotic remote surgery is another, for me, I want holographic 3d Ramon city walk around in my living room. Or mountain climb without any danger. IMHO. 
    None of that requires 5G or will be helped by it. 
    It cannot implement without high speed - or you have huge storage on site. 
  • Reply 11 of 13
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,571member
    I regret being offended by the price of 666.66.
    JinTech
  • Reply 12 of 13
    AppleZuluAppleZulu Posts: 2,007member
    1st said:
    Amazing engineering piece. Need more break through nowadays, not just progressive product. Hopefully, 5G would open the flood gate.  
    That isn’t how mature product categories work, which like cars, desktop computing is. iterative improvement is the name of the game. the low hanging fruit was harvested long ago. 
    Right and wrong at the same time. Most advances are indeed incremental, built on on preceding tech in one way or another. In the myopia of the moment, these advances seem humdrum. When you compare an iPhone XS to an iPhone 1, however, they’re pretty significant, and the time elapsed between the two isn’t that long.

    Still, “low hanging fruit” of bigger advances are always out there. Most people just don’t see them until after they’ve been picked, when the thing seems obvious to everyone. People think of the Wright Brothers as bicycle shop tinkerers who stumbled into powered flight. In truth, they were serious scientists and engineers who realized the previous incremental progress was mostly a dead end, threw it all out and invented their powered flight, fixed-wing airplane that could be controlled by an onboard pilot. Forty four years of incremental improvements later, and Chuck Yeager flew Glamorous Glennis past Mach 1.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 13
    JinTechJinTech Posts: 1,022member
    For as "rare" as these Apple I are, they surely do pop up for sale pretty often. 
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