Original Apple computer, also known as ‘Chaffey College’ Apple-1, will go for auction on Tuesday. The computer was hand-built by founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak 45 years ago. The computer was tested by Steve Jobs’ sister Patty Jobs and Daniel Kottke in the Jobs’ home.
‘Chaffey College’ Apple-1 is likely to fetch up to $600,000 at an auction organised by the auction house John Moran Auctioneers. To add to its novelty, the computer is encased in Koa wood – a richly patinated wood abundantly available and easily available in Hawaii. There are only six known examples of the Koa wood case in existence and this unit is one of them.
The device is one of only 200 made jointly by Jobs and Wozniak at the very start of the company’s rise from a garage start-up to a tech behemoth worth over $2 trillion. Steve and Wozniak sold these computers as component parts.
One hundred and seventy-five of them were sold for $666.66, a figure that catered to Wozniak’s love for repeating numbers. 50 of the 175 computers were sold to Paul Terrell, owner of ByteShop in California’s Mountain View.
“When you see certain items, you just know that they’re going to be showstoppers,” Nathan Martinez, advertising and marketing director at John Moran, told the newspaper. “The Apple-1 is one of those.”
