Ebay Watch: Apple I To Go on Sale

Nicole Martinelli ()

CC-licensed, thanks to Ed Uthman on Flickr.

CC-licensed, thanks to Ed Uthman on Flickr.

A man describing himself as an “82-year-old antique” is putting a relatively young 32-year-old Apple I for sale on eBay in the next few weeks.

One of 200 computers hand made by Steve Wozniak, somewhere between 30 and 50 are thought to be still around. (If you’re more interested in seeing one than buying one, the Smithsonian has an Apple I on display as it’s being presented to the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto).

Back in July 1976, the Apple I sold for $666.66.  The computers, sold in a kit,  came with 4KB standard memory, that you could bump up to 8KB or 48KB with expansion cards. You had to add your own case, keyboard and display.

Guesstimates say the computer could fetch between $14,000 and $16,000.

The seller wrote in to San Francisco Chronicle tech columnist David Einstein about how he might get publicity for the sale.

Einstein replied, “I don’t think your computer is valuable enough to spark much general media interest before you sell it.”

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Alas, he underestimated the Cult of Mac.  Mr. Antique, we want to hear from you!

7 comments »

About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

If you're doing something new/cool that's Apple related, email her about it.

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Posted in Cult of Mac, News, Top stories, Vintage Tech | Tagged: |

  • Barry Wood

    There is also an Apple I at the Computer History Museum in Mountainview, CA.

    http://www.computerhistory.org/

  • Franck S.

    Pas mal non plus en bois…

  • http://www.knoxbronson.com Knox Bronson

    The Chronicle, and most newspapers these days, are filled up with clueless, self-important idiots like David Einstein. They were hired by money-fuckhead marketeers with no vision and they are as much to blame for the death of newspapers as craigslist and the internet.

  • Rikki

    Haha! He thought an Apple I wouldn’t fetch much money? Anything that rare is bound to be valuable, let alone something from the early days of home computing; let alone something from the early days of Apple! What a fool. How do we go about more publicly ridiculing him?

  • erika dumaine

    i’d totally like to take a gander at one. i’m headed to palo alto this weekend…guess i’ll have to try and seek it out. wicked cool idea.

  • http://apple1computer.blogspot.com/ John Calande

    Here is the website for the Apple 1 that is going up for sale:

    apple1forsale.com

    BTW, the original Apple 1 also did not come with a complete power supply either. (i.e. you had to go out and buy your transformers to complete the power supply)

  • Bob

    Sold. Auction #320431509242