Apple-1 'celebration' auction bids hit $270K

A motherboard that appears to be one of the first ever produced for the Apple-1 is up for auction on CharityBuzz, and has been valued at nearly $1 million.

The "Celebration" Apple-1 board previewed in July comes with the most complete documentation yet seen for the board, marketing materials, a period-correct power supply, an original cassette interface board, and early Apple Basic cassettes signed by early Apple employee and coder Daniel Kottke.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak believes that no boards of the type up for auction were ever sold to the general public. It is believed that the board could be powered up, but the appraiser recommends against it to maintain the original configuration of the 40-year old computer.

Appraiser Corey Cohen believes it to be a prototype or experimental board, using higher quality components than later boards. The board has been dubbed "Celebration," as a result, because of it being the only known unit still in existence to feature a pre-production circuit board.

"It's the rookie card, for lack of a better word," Cohen told Recode, comparing the antique board's sale to higher-value baseball card auctions. Wozniak doesn't remember assembling any boards with the components, so Cohen believes that the machine was assembled by Kottke or Steve Jobs.

The original owner is thought to be an unnamed early employee of Apple. The first non-Apple owner acquired the board in 1977, and the current owner took possession of it in 2000 for $18,000.

The ">auction ends on Aug. 25, with a portion of the sale going to charity. On Friday, bidding has already reached $270,000.

In October 2014, one of 50 known surviving Apple I was sold at auction for $905,000, obliterating expectations for that sale, and the previous record of $671,400.