Auction

Sotheby’s plans to auction two pieces of Apple history on June 15 in New York, including a rare document penned by Steve Jobs while working at Atari and an operational Apple I motherboard expected to fetch up to $180,000 USD. An excerpt from Sotheby’s description for the Apple I lot is below, and it claims less than six Apple I’s in working condition are known to exist:

As the first ready-made personal computer, the Apple I signaled a new age in which computing became accessible to the masses. The interface of circuitry and software that Woz created enabled users to type letters with “a human-typable keyboard instead of a stupid, cryptic front panel with a bunch of lights and switches,” as he explained to the Homebrew Computer Club. Even so, it was sold without a keyboard, monitor, case, or power supply, An exceptionally rare, working example with original Apple cassette interface, operation manuals and a rare BASIC Users’ Manual. It is thought that fewer than 50 Apple I Computers survive, with only 6 known to be in working condition.
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Update: The auction was pulled, but it is unknown as to the reason.

A fourth-generation iPod shuffle autographed by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is depicted in the image above. The owner put the device up for auction on eBay, and the bidding currently sits around US $4,000 US $10,000.

The iPod’s owner said he and three colleagues were invited to attend an Apple event in conjunction with the “innovators of tomorrow” program, where they had the rare opportunity to ask Jobs for his signature. After the event wrapped, the owner approached Jobs:

“I hear you’re not really one to give autographs, but I just gotta ask…. will you sign my iPod? It’s fine if you don’t want to. I’m not normally one to even ask for autographs.” 

According to the seller’s account, Jobs responded:

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On April Foolsday in 1976 Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne signed the founding contract for Apple Computer.  Eleven days later, Ron Wayne  decided to sell his 10% of the company for $800, which is now worth $3.9 billion.  The founding contract that made history was originally expected to sell for $150,000, but today sold for a cool $1.6 million to Eduardo Cisneros, chief executive officer of Cisneros Corp, at a Sotheby’s auction in New York, reports Bloomberg. The Cisneros family is the second wealthiest in South America according to a 2006 Forbes listing.

The story goes that apparently the consigner bought the legal papers back in the mid-1990s “from a manuscript dealer” who is thought to had acquired them from Wayne. We’ve posted the bidding after the break.

Update: we’ve confirmed the documents have sold for $1,594,500, but the $1.3 million that Fortune reported doesn’t include the buyers tax the auction house tags on. Thanks Dewitt!

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