Apple I Motherboard Part of $402,000 Sotheby’s Sale
The Apple I motherboard that was up for auction at Sotheby’s sold for an astounding $402,000. Along with the motherboard was a letter from the late Apple founder, Steve Jobs. The BBC placed an estimated sales price of $374,500 on the Apple I motherboard and $27,500 for the four-page hand-written memo of Steve Jobs.
Apple reportedly created around 200 Apple I devices of which the BBC believes 50 still exist. At the time of retail these computers sold for $666.66 which would have been a great investment in hindsight. The Apple I motherboard was hand-built by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
The memo that was also auctioned off at Sotheby’s was a hand written one by a 19-year-old Steve Jobs who was working at Atari at the time. It contained recommendations for upgrading the current Atari soccer game, “World Cup.”
Both pieces of the auction completely blew out any sort of valuation Sotheby’s had on them. The memo had a price tag of $15,000 and Sotheby’s didn’t expect the motherboard to pass $200,000.
