At an auction at Bonhams in New York on Wednesday, one of the tech giant’s few remaining Apple-1 machines fetched a whopping $905,000, around double the amount seller John Anderson of the Cincinnati-based AppleSiders Apple user group had been expecting. The sale also set a new record for the price paid for an Apple-1, of which only only 200 were made. The previous record was set at an auction in Germany last year when the same model fetched $671,400.
Hundreds of bidders from around the world participated in Wednesday’s auction, which ended with a winning bid from The Henry Ford organization. It intends to put the rare computer on show alongside its vast collection of other historic items at its museum in Dearborn, Michigan, Reuters reported.
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In a statement, museum president Patricia Mooradian described the Apple-1 as “not only innovative,” but also “a key artifact in the foundation of the digital revolution.”
She added: “Similar to what Henry Ford did with the Model T, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs put technology directly in the hands of the people with the creation of the Apple-1, completely altering the way we work and live.”
Made in the USA
As its name suggests, the Apple-1 was the Cupertino company’s very first computer, hand-built by company co-founder Steve Wozniak out of Steve Jobs’ garage back in 1976.
The machine, which basically consisted of a circuit board and little else, went on the market with a $666.66 price tag (Wozniak was into repeating digits, apparently).
Of the approximately 200 units made by Wozniak and Jobs, around 50 are believed to still exist, with only a few in working condition, among them the one that sold in New York this week. Well, at that price, you really would want it to be functioning, wouldn’t you.
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