Original Apple 1 sells for $374,500
(Associated Press)
Who knows? Maybe one day that old iPod you’re clinging to will be worth something.
A mothertboard from an original Apple 1 computer fetched $374,500 at a Sotheby’s auction Friday in New York. Fewer than 50 Apple 1s are believed to be around, with only six in working condition, the auction house said in a catalog, as reported by CNET. The winning bidder wasn’t identified, but the machine is one of the working ones.
The original Apple 1 sold for $666.66 – sans monitor, keyboard, case and power supply. Only about 200 were ever produced, according to CNET. The Apple 1 at Friday’s auction was expected to sell for $120,000 to $180,000.
The motherboard wasn’t the only thing in demand this week. A 1974 memo Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wrote to then-employer Atari on how it could improve a World Cup Soccer coin arcade game sold for $27,500 at Sotheby’s.
CNET said Jobs, only 19 at the time, wrote the memo to an Atari supervisor and it includes the address of a California commune where Jobs lived at one time. The missive was expected to fetch $10,000 to $15,000.
While he was at Atari, Jobs also employed Steve Wozniak, who would later join him in co-founding Apple. Jobs, 56, died last October of pancreatic cancer after stepping down from the company.
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10 comments Add your comment
bronco
June 15th, 2012
7:17 pm
It goes to prove there somebody somewhere with too much money and time
ruthy
June 15th, 2012
8:52 pm
How about a vintage IMac?
Fred Johnson
June 15th, 2012
8:57 pm
Sure bronco, and you get to decide how much money is “too much” right?? Why don’t you move to venezeula, they love people like you down there. You could go to soviet russia too, they love your way of thinking too. Oh! Wait a minute!! Never mind…. your way of thinking is WHY soviet russia collapsed…..
outonleave
June 15th, 2012
9:06 pm
Damn, Fred Johnson . . . ease up on the anger a little bit there. That stuff will eat you from the inside out.
ML
June 15th, 2012
9:14 pm
Fred Johnson, you must be constipated. Eat more fiber!
tbone
June 16th, 2012
2:08 am
God bless you, Fred Johnson. Great job turning a simple statement implying someone wasted money, into a political statement. You must have been the captain of the debate team in High School.
Also, the Soviet Union collapsed due to the fact it could not compete with the West economically and fund its culture of war by competing with the United States in the arms race. Russian could not buy foreign goods and that led to a economic failure because Russian desired foreign imports. I don’t know about where you are, but nearly everything in the USA is made in foreign countries because labor is cheaper and it keeps price s down while destroying American jobs at the same time. Does that sound the same? Nope.
Mountain Man
June 16th, 2012
2:47 am
Ruthy, I have you covered on vintage iMacs. I have a near complete run of the iMacs. My collection is waiting for a profit minded collector like you.
mrbill
June 16th, 2012
2:50 am
Very smart investment, will see huge increase in value in the future.
Fred Johnson
June 16th, 2012
3:13 am
Consuming bad pork is the reason America has fallen behind China. You will never recover Special Ed.
tbone
June 16th, 2012
6:06 am
Sorry Fred. I read that as “I am Semitic and I approve of special education in the United States. C is for China.”