Over the last few years, we’ve seen quite a few Apple I’s hit the auction block. Some of the machines can be worth over half a million dollars, depending the item’s condition, and a new working Apple I is about to hit the auction block.
A German auctioneer is putting their rare, working Apple I computer up for auction later this month and hopes to make between $261,000 and $392,000.
That historic “grab a cuppa joe with Tim Cook” auction, which still has a couple of weeks to go and has already broken records, has had a little bit of a set back: credit card fraud that has set the auction back by thousands of dollars.
UPDATE: Bidding just reached $505,000!
Earlier this week we wrote about a Charitybuzz auction that will get you coffee with Apple CEO Tim Cook at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. At the time, the auction had reached $5,250, but its estimated value was just under ten times that amount at $50,000.
Just a few days later, the auction has received 68 bids and reached a whopping $295,000 with 18 days still to go. It’s now Charitybuzz’s biggest ever auction.
Speculating in vintage computers isn’t exactly the same as putting money into a blue chip. Here’s the proof: a rare Apple I being sold at auction at Christie’s has just failed to make its minimum bid of 50,000 British pounds (or about $80,000), despite the fact that a similar machine sold for $374,500 in June.
The Apple I was the first computer built by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs back in 1976. They only made 200 units, and sold them for $666.66, but if you happen to own one, you’re sitting on a small fortune.
An Apple I computer is set to be auctioned off at Christie’s on October 9th, and even though it’s inoperable, because it’s missing the required DRAM, the owner of the machine might get $126,000 for it.
A rare iPhone 4 “N90” prototype has surfaced on eBay with a strange prototype logo, or “protologo,” on its rear panel. Its seller insists it is the first iPhone 4 prototype to be listed on the online auction site, and they’re currently looking for starting bids of $4,500, or $10,000 for an instant sale.
Auction house Sothebys has just posted a memo written by Steve Jobs to his co-workers at Atari, where he worked before starting Apple. The memo was written to his then-supervisor Stephen Bristow, and suggested changes Jobs had for Atari’s World Cup Soccer arcade game to extend the shelf life for arcade owners.
Funnily enough, while the memo is typed on Atari letterhead, it includes a stamp with the name of Steve’s company, “All-One Farm Design” and the address of the garage in which he and friend Steve Wozniak would soon create history with Apple Computer. Imagine if he’d gone ahead with designing farms?
Rare Vintage Apple items are popular these days. An Apple Lisa 1 put up for sale on eBay last week has sold for $15,000 after 11 bids! The unit, in working condition, belonged to a former member of the Lisa production team at Apple and was sold by his brother. In an email received by Cult of Mac, the seller noted that the buyer intends to display the system in a museum in Italy.
