Steve Jobs $4.01 check for RadioShack sold for $46,063

Steve Jobs went shopping at RadioShack in 1976, spending a whopping $4.01 via a signed check — and that check has blown away expectations, hitting $46,063 at auction.

RR Auction held its Fine Autograph and Artifacts auction from November 17 to December 6. It featured a Science and Technology sale with a signed check from Steve Jobs.

The check was expected to fetch around $25,000, but ended up closing at $46,063. The check was written for $4.01 for a purchase at RadioShack on July 23, 1976.

RadioShack played an important part in the pre-Apple days, as co-founder Steve Wozniak bought the TRS-80 Micro Computer System at the retailer, which he then used to build his "blue box" to make long-distance calls for free. In the early days of the partnership between Wozniak and Jobs, the pair made and sold around 200 of the boxes for about $150 apiece.

The check was written just four months after Apple was founded, showing how RadioShack remained an important resource even as Apple began.

In May, another auction for an Apple check signed by Jobs from July 1976 also went up for auction. However, that check to pay Crampton, Remke, and Miller, Inc $175 eventually sold for $106,985.

Apple memorabilia constantly shows up for auction and fetches lavishly high prices. A sealed first-generation iPhone fetched $10,456 at the same auction.

8 Comments

JustSomeGuy1 330 comments · 6 Years

About 11 months ago

AppleInsider said:

RadioShack played an important part in the pre-Apple days, as co-founder Steve Wozniak bought the TRS-80 Micro Computer System at the retailer, which he then used to build his "blue box" to make long-distance calls for free. In the early days of the partnership between Wozniak and Jobs, the pair made and sold around 200 of the boxes for about $150 apiece.

The check was written just four months after Apple was founded, showing how RadioShack remained an important resource even as Apple began.
Excellent journalism work, blindly parroting the lies told by the auctioneer. At least show some grace by revising your article. (MacRumors, sadly, did not show such grace.)

Steve Wozniak did not buy a TRS-80 to build blue boxes. Blue boxes are tone generators. A TRS-80 would do nothing for that. But more to the point, the chronology is stupidly wrong. The TRS-80 came out the same year as the Apple II. It could not have been used to build blue boxes that then financed the development of the Apple 1. Sources? Check Wikipedia, for example.

It's interesting that we talk about the Steves building and selling blue boxes like that's an OK or admirable thing to do. It was commercial-scale theft, even though the target (Ma Bell) deserved whatever it got.

phaseangle 36 comments · 3 Years

About 11 months ago

Unfortunately most auctioneers, and some journalists, don't let the truth get in the way a good story to help a sale.

mpantone 2245 comments · 18 Years

About 11 months ago

The art auction world is way, Way, WAY worse, those guys frequently put obvious fakes up for sale.

For that matter, for all we know this check could be a fake. After all, faking a Seventies-era check is undoubtedly easier than faking a Federal Reserve Note just due to the fact that very few remember what the original check looked like. And the paper stock for checks wasn't as tightly controlled as the paper stock for currency. Probably easier to find some reams of old check paper.

Anyhow, I hope the winning bidder enjoys it.

macgui 2458 comments · 17 Years

About 11 months ago

That was a cool WF check style. Today's offerings are bleak by comparison. I don't use checks much anymore so it's not an issue.

Without seeing the back I assume it's a cancelled check returned to Apple Computer Company and somebody thought to save it. Maybe it was discovered or it was dug up out of old company records. There may be more out there. Maybe we'll see another in a year or two.

Too bad there's not more info on who sold the check. Who had permission to have the check and sell it.