San Fransisco: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s hand-built Apple-I computer sold at auction for $500,000.
The Apple-I Personal Computer was purchased by a professor at Chaffey College in 1976 for more than double its $200,000 starting offer. The Apple-I was famously sold for $666.66 at the time, which is almost $3,211 in 2021 dollars.
That original price is thus 0.64 percent of the half-million dollars raised at the auction in Monrovia, California, by John Moran Auctioneers and Appraisers.
The successful offer of $500,000 is confirmed in the auctioneer’s final listing, which also notes that the estimate was between $400,000 and $600,000. It’s unclear whether the lot had a reserve price.
The sale also includes cables, programming instructions, handwritten index cards, and a 1986 Panasonic monitor, in addition to the computer with its original “NTI” motherboard.
Auctions of Apple I models are uncommon, but a model signed by Wozniak was auctioned in 2020.