Apple is about to turn 50 in a few months, and vintage items from the company"s decades-long tech history have a dedicated fan base. There are many collectors willing to loosen their wallets to get their hands on some of the rarest items belonging to the Cupertino giant.
A recent Apple auction hosted by RR Auction brought home a total of $8.1 million for a collection of artifacts that includes Check #1. It"s the first check ever drawn on Apple"s bank account on March 16, 1976, which was sixteen days before Apple officially existed as a company.
While we have seen old Apple checks signed by the late co-founder Steve Jobs selling for tens of thousands of dollars, this $500 check payable to Howard Cantin bears the signatures of both founders: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The duo raised money by selling Jobs" Volkswagen bus and Woz"s prized HP-65 calculator.
This money was for the earliest known green fiberglass Apple-1 prototype, the "Celebration" Apple-1 (Board Zero), intended to validate its design. This is the validation board that laid the foundation for what Apple has become today.
Speaking of which, Apple"s founding papers were also sold at auction more than a decade ago for $1.35 million.
Apple historian Corey Cohen, who has examined the "Celebration" board extensively, said it required extensive testing, hand-soldering, and manual fixes, mostly performed by Steve Jobs while Wozniak was working full-time at HP. A key difference between Board Zero and the production Apple-1 boards is that the latter used minimal hand-soldering on final components.
According to RR Auction"s website, the "Celebration" board sold for $2,750,000, while the first check from the pre-Apple era brought in $2,409,886. Another artifact sold at the auction was the first bank statement documenting the $500 deposit via Check #1 and its corresponding withdrawal on March 23, 1976.
The Wells Fargo bank statement was sold for $828,569 during the auction. But there are other items from Apple"s and Jobs" history that people made their prized possessions, bringing the total value to over $8.1 million. Here are some of them:
- Steve Jobs"s Personally-Owned 1977 Apple Computer Inc. Poster: $659,900
- Steve Jobs Signed NeXT Business Card: $52,500
- Steve Jobs"s Personally-Owned Bow Ties: $113,580
- Steve Jobs"s Bedroom Desk from the "Apple Garage": $81,989
- Steve Jobs Signed "Farewell Roast" Award Certificate (1982): $38,125
These add to the growing list of Apple memorabilia auctioned periodically. Among past auctions, we saw a rare, unopened 4GB original iPhone, an 8GB sealed original iPhone, and one with a "Lucky You" sticker.
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