Rare Steve Jobs application sells for $343,000, NFT version pulls in $23,000

Two versions of a rare job application filled out by late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs were sold at auction this week, with the physical paper document bringing in considerably more bids and money than an accompanying digital copy sold as a non-fungible token.

The document, a job application filled out by Jobs in 1973, went for the equivalent of $343,000 in cryptocurrency Ethereum on Wednesday, while the NFT sold for about $23,000, according to a website maintained by auction organizer Olly Joshi. Snoofa was used to list the physical application and Rarible hosted the NFT.

When Joshi listed the item earlier this month, he positioned the NFT version as an experiment of sorts.

"Will this open a whole new market for decentralized collectibles? Will this cement the status-quo? Or could we see a stalemate with a fresh understanding that both can coexist and even complement one another as we traverse the next 50 years of innovation?," Joshi asked on the website.

Jobs' application has made the rounds over the years, most recently selling for 162,000 pounds (about $223,000 at the time) in March. It was previously listed in 2018, when it garnered close to $175,000.

Not much is known about the document. Jobs filled it out when he was likely 18 and either attending Reed College or auditing classes at the institution. The computer guru dropped out of Reed after six months, but continued to sit in on a variety of liberal arts classes for the next year and half.

Early Apple hardware and Jobs memorabilia often fetch high prices at auction. Examples of the company's first computer, the Apple-1, are extremely valuable, with one working unit going for nearly $1 million in 2014.

Items signed to Jobs are equally prized, as the Apple co-founder was notoriously averse to handing out autographs.

7 Comments

DAalseth 6 Years · 3067 comments

About 3 years ago

The idea behind NFTs was to have a token for something like a computer graphic that had no physical form. Now that people are paying thousands for NFTs for physical objects they get what? the real document is owned by someone else. They can make a new scan of it and put it on the web. The NFT is worth exactly nothing, it gives exactly nothing, it controls exactly nothing. It's worth whatever someone with more money than brains is willing to pay for it, but it actually is nothing.

randominternetperson 8 Years · 3101 comments

DAalseth said:

The idea behind NFTs was to have a token for something like a computer graphic that had no physical form. Now that people are paying thousands for NFTs for physical objects they get what? the real document is owned by someone else. They can make a new scan of it and put it on the web. The NFT is worth exactly nothing, it gives exactly nothing, it controls exactly nothing. It's worth whatever someone with more money than brains is willing to pay for it, but it actually is nothing.

My thoughts exactly. What's stopping the guy who made the original from scanning the document again and selling another "unique" NFT of the same silly thing? Of for $0 I can take the picture off the auction web site and pretend that I "own" it.

But if anyone is interested in a NFT of some pictures I took at Yosemite park, hit me up.

chadbag 13 Years · 2029 comments

I agree with the comments on the NFT. What is exactly the point?

spheric 9 Years · 2705 comments

Selling an NFT for a physical item is the dumbest thing ever.

That's like selling a boat anchor for a mooring dock.

macgui 17 Years · 2471 comments

spheric said:

Selling an NFT for a physical item is the dumbest thing ever.

That's like selling a boat anchor for a mooring dock.

I suppose that analogy is meant on some level to deliberately not be analogous.

There is a little more to NFTs but like anything the only value is in the eyes of the beholder. NFTs offer provenance to an intangible which in many cases isn't important to me or a lot of other people. Just as some people are happy with counterfeits, knock-offs, or reproductions (all different things) of something valuable as in a rare or expensive watch or painting, others would rather own the genuine item.

This is similar to buying a crater on the moon, or a name for a star – not how I want to spend my money. But if somebody has it to spend on that sort of thing, fine by me. I don't know if it's happened yet, but maybe we'll see counterfeit NFTs after awhile. But the provenance should be easier to document than that of a newly discovered Renoir or someone.