A working Apple-1 computer will go under the hammer at a Christie’s auction later this month, with an estimated value of between $300,000 and $500,000.

Not only is the Apple-1 motherboard one of relatively few working units still in existence in 2017, but it also includes some unusual modifications by its original owner — with the original 4K of RAM boosted up to a whopping total of 12K.

Some of the most important scientific instruments of the past 700 years are hitting the auction block later this month, but one of the newest creations in the lot — one of the very first computers created by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak — is expect to fetch the highest bid.

A working Apple-1 computer has sold at a Christie’s auction for $365,000: more than 600x the $600 that was paid for it back in July 1976, when it was bought from Steve Jobs.

While the figure is certainly sizeable, however, it’s also a bit of a disappointment when you consider that just two months ago, a similar machine fetched an eye-watering $905,000, when it was acquired by the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan, to be part of its ongoing collection. “It’s very rare to be able to collect the beginning of something, but the Apple-1 is exactly that,” Henry Ford curator Kristen Gallerneaux told Cult of Mac shortly after that auction had concluded.

Yesterday’s Christie’s auction in New York had expected the Apple-1 to sell for between $400,000 and $600,000, although there had been some speculation it could break the $1 million mark.

The Apple-1 came complete with a mounted cancelled check for his purchase, made out to Apple Computer by original owner Charles Ricketts.

We’ve seen a couple of vintage Apple I computers auctioned off over the past year or so, each with an astronomically huge price tag. Another rare Apple I was sold at a Christie’s online auction today but this time the auction failed to reach its expected price.

The winner of the auction purchased the Apple I with its original manual, schematics and photo of Steve Jobs and Woz for $387,750.

While pocketing nearly 400 grand off an old dusty computer sounds like a pretty nice pay-day to most, the Apple I was expected to sell for as much as $500,000 according to pre-auction estimates, though it wasn’t expected to break the $671,400 price tag a working Apple I received in May.

Source: CNBC

Via: TUAW

A working Apple I, the first computer built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, has been sold at auction for a record $640,000. That’s considerably more than the machine’s original asking price of $666.66, and almost $270,000 more than the previous Apple I record set by Sotheby’s back in June.

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.