An Apple-1 computer owned by Apple’s first applications engineer, Dana Redington, has sold for $315,000+ at auction. A large number of other Steve Jobs- and Apple-related items were also sold at The “Steve Jobs and the Apple Revolution” auction event. The event, which included nearly 300 items on the auction block, brought in a total of $983,096 from all the items.
Redington’s Apple-1 Computer came from a “trade-in” pile that Steve Jobs had in his office. Jobs and Steve Wozniak gifted the Apple-1 to Reddington, who selected it and some other components from the jumble of parts in Jobs’ office. Apple-1 expert Corey Cohen then restored the gifted computer to working order. The fully functional computer had been expected to sell for more than $300,000.
The Apple-1 board, which had previously been unknown to the Apple collecting community, has now been added to the Apple-1 Registry as #104.
The Apple-1 auction included a letter of provenance from Dana Redington:
“In early 1978, while preparing for a move to a new building, I noticed a pile of soon-to-be-discarded Apple I boards. Apple had offered a trade-in program for upgrading to the Apple II to help phase out the older board. With Wozniak and Jobs’ permission, I selected the best motherboard and a couple of cassette interface cards from the pile.”
A “pitch deck” of several original Polaroids that were used by Jobs when presenting the Apple-1 to Paul Terrell was also auctioned. Terrell historically ordered a batch of Apple-1 computers to sell in The Byte Shop, and the Polaroids were a part of Jobs’ pitch deck. The pitch deck went for $54,904. It had been expected to sell for over $30,000.
An original new-in-box 4GB iPhone was also on the auction block. However, still factory-sealed in the box iPhone’s auction page says only that, “This lot has closed” with no winning bid listed.
Another item marked as “closed” with no winning bid listed is the bomber jacket that Steve Jobs wore in an iconic 1983 photograph that captured him “giving the finger” to an IBM sign in New York City. The bomber jacket was expected to bring as much as $75,000 at auction.
Also up for auction, were Jobs’ 1972 high school yearbook, several vintage magazines with Jobs featured on the covers, checks signed by Jobs, a Jobs business card, a Steve Jobs NeXT ID badge Polaroid, several classic Macs, and several other historic items, including items signed by current Apple CEO, Tim Cook.
The auction also included several other vintage items, including early video game arcade cabinets, autographs from Microsoft’s Bill Gates and other historic industry figures, and a rare PDP-8 system.
Several “budget-priced” items were also auctioned off, including a rare color Grolier Inc. trading card of Steve Jobs from its 1998 ‘Notable People’ Series which sold for $160.