A collection of early Apple computers and memorabilia related to co-founder Steve Jobs is up for auction to mark the company’s 50th anniversary.
A total of 191 lots are up for auction, including early Apple products, original corporate documents, and Steve Jobs’ personal belongings from his childhood bedroom in Los Altos, California. The auction began this week and will run through January 29, RR Auction said.
One of the main lots is the first check in the history of Apple Computer Inc. The document is dated March 16, 1976, and signed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. A Wells Fargo check for $500 was made out to Howard Kentin, who designed the circuit board for the Apple-1 computer. The payment was made more than two weeks before the company was officially incorporated, and the auction house calls it one of the key documents for Apple’s early financing. Bidding for the lot topped $30,000 in the first 24 hours, and RR Auctions expects the final price to reach $500,000 or more.
Early Apple hardware is currently the most popular item. The highest bid was $55,000 for the earliest known prototype motherboard, the Apple-1. The auction house also estimates that the final price for the lot could exceed half a million dollars. Other items include a Lisa-1 workstation computer, a first-generation iPhone that was later hacked by a hacker known as Geohot, and Apple advertising and marketing materials from the 1970s and 1980s.
A separate section of the auction will feature items from Steve Jobs’ childhood bedroom, donated by his half-brother, John Chowanek. The items include a wooden desk, handwritten notebooks, 8-track tapes of Bob Dylan, and a set of bow ties that Jobs wore in high school. Wired reported that the desk’s drawers contain materials that Jobs worked on for Atari in the mid-1970s, as well as notebooks from Reed College and annotated technical manuals. Such personal provenance is usually of particular significance to collectors.
RR Auction notes that Steve Jobs’ reluctance to sign memorabilia during his lifetime has had a significant impact on the market. Authenticated documents with his signature consistently sell for high prices. According to the auction house, in previous years, even Jobs’ signed business cards have fetched six-figure sums. The company attributes this to collectors’ emotional connection to the Apple co-founder.