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Functioning Apple I with original packaging could sell for $500K

Yet another working model of the first computer that Apple ever produced is going on auction, this time with its full packaging in a lot that could fetch north of half a million dollars.

Germany's AuctionTeamBreker, the group behind the record-breaking auction of another Apple I in December, is ,a href="http://www.breker.com/Read%20More/">now offering yet another Apple I, this time from among the first batch of 50 computers for Apple's first client, the Byte Shop. "No. 46," as Breker's site calls the device, is signed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and it will come with its original software and its original box.

Each Apple I originally sold for $666.66, and Wozniak designed and built roughly 200 total units. Of those, only a few remain in functional condition today. Earlier this year, another Wozniak-signed model sold at Christie's for #387,000. The record was another working model, sold in December of last year for $640,000.

AuctionTeamBreker will sell the device on November 16 of this year. The team estimates that it will catch between $300,000 and $500,000 at auction, though its listing admits the total could go higher. The team is also offering a prototype Twiggy Drive Macintosh from 1983, signed by early Apple employee Daniel Kottke. That unit is expected to sell for between $50 000 and $90,000.



16 Comments

andysol 13 Years · 2504 comments

Why would anyone buy this?  The 27" iMac is only $1,799 and the new Mac Pro is about to be released.  Those blow this out of the water in geekbench ratings!

lkrupp 19 Years · 10521 comments

I wonder what a mint IBM PC from that era would go for? How about an Amiga, or TRS-80, or Commodore, or the other "better personal computers that were around for years before Apple copied them" as the usual suspects would claim? What would those go for in auctions? Not much it would seem.

drblank 18 Years · 3384 comments

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andysol 
 

Why would anyone buy this?  The 27" iMac is only $1,799 and the new Mac Pro is about to be released.  Those blow this out of the water in geekbench ratings!

They aren't buying them to use them, they are buying them to show off how rich they are so they can brag that they paid X amount of money for one of the earliest Apple's and paid an exorbinent amount of money for it.

andysol 13 Years · 2504 comments

Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank 
 

They aren't buying them to use them

........  seriously?

bubblepuppy 12 Years · 3 comments

Woz signs everything. One day artifacts in their original condition, NOT signed by Woz, will probably be more rare and desirable.