Designed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, the Apple-1 (also known as the Apple Computer 1 or simply Apple I) marked the first PC sold with a fully assembled motherboard pre-installed inside it. Almost 50 years later, just half of the 200 ever made are accounted for, while just 70 include the original motherboard. But of those, only one sat on Jobs’ desk—and it could be yours, if you’re willing to shell out at least $300,000 on September 10 in New York City.
While generating $385.6 billion in annual revenue today, Apple’s initial success was far from certain. As New Atlas explains, the Apple-1 project even required Jobs to sell his Volkswagen Kombi and Wozniak to part ways with his HP calculator. The gamble paid off, however, after the duo’s first order for 50 Apple-1 computers handbuilt in their garage sold at $666.66 apiece. Even then, however, buyers weren’t getting a fully assembled device. Christie’s auction listing explains that although the Apple-1 was sold “without casing, power supply, keyboard or monitor… the pre-assembled motherboard put Apple far ahead of its competitors.”
Despite its groundbreaking aspects, Jobs and Wozniak only built around 200 Apple-1 models before soon moving on to design the Apple-II. Nevertheless, Jobs kept one in his office for years as a keepsake that eventually found its way into the Paul G. Allen Collection at the Living Computer Museum + Labs.
While most museums managed to reopen after the end of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, the Living Computer Museum + Labs wasn’t so lucky. Shuttered in 2020 due to quarantine restrictions, the Seattle institution couldn’t weather the financial burden, leaving hundreds of pieces of tech history archived away from public eyes. Since then, many items are either reshuffling to other museums or going up for auction, including Jobs’ Apple-1.
As one of Microsoft’s co-founders, some might consider it ironic that Allen (who passed away in 2018) possessed Jobs’ Apple-1 for years. Allen, however, devoted a sizable portion of his immense wealth to amassing rare and significant historical and technological artifacts. Over 150 of these make up the upcoming Christie’s event, “Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection” scheduled to run in three live auctions between August 23 and September 12. Bidding on the Apple-1 will start on September 10 at 12PM EST, and is currently estimated to sell for between $300,000-$500,000.
[Related: First generation iPhone sells for over $190,000.]
The historic computer is far from the Allen collection’s only fascinating, historically significant, or outright bonkers piece for sale. Other lots include Buzz Aldrin’s NASA training flight suit ($100,000-$150,000), a three-piece scale model of the Gemini capsule ($8,000-$12,000), a World War II era, four-rotor Enigma cipher machine ($250,000-$350,000), and perhaps most striking of all, the actual letter from August 2, 1939, written by Albert Einstein to FDR warning him of Nazi Germany’s intent to make an atomic bomb ($4,000,000—$6,000,000). And if science or tech collector’s items aren’t your thing, there’s always an actual first-class dining menu from the RMS Titanic to consider purchasing if you have an extra $30,000-$50,000 burning a hole in your pocket.
Discussion about this post