An Apple 1 auction earlier this month resulted in the sale of the vintage computer for over $387,000 — which makes it one of the most expensive items ever sold by Christie’s online only auction house. You can see the original owner and seller Ted Perry talking it up before the sale on the video up top. He’s 70, and he’s finally figured out that he’s never going to do anything with it, so it was apparently time to cash in.
He’s burbling with enthusiasm, and why not? A previous vintage Apple 1 computer recently sold at auction for a mind-croggling $668,000. I have a full report on that May vintage Apple 1 sale right here .
But the short version is that an anonymous Asian investor splashed out on the vintage Apple 1 circuit board originally sold in 1976 for what was then a fairly outrageous $666. The piece was signed by Steve Wozniak himself and is believed to be one of only six of the original working models left in the world.
A previous high price for a vintage Apple 1 was a still-staggering $550,000 — and that sale apparently included a lot more hardware, including a monitor.
Therefore the new offering was expected to fetch the seller as much as $500,000 — which means that the actual final sales price was over six figures too low. That’s gotta hurt.
But Christie’s did mention that the final sale could be as low as $300,000, so it definitely could have been worse.
The auction house also noted that the original selling price of the Apple 1 was $666.66. However, it sounds like from Perry’s description on the video that he actually knew these guys and may or may not have paid money for it. Either way, he’s still made a heckuva return on his possible original investment of less than $700.
So maybe he’s not entirely broken-hearted, although if I were him, I’d still be kicking myself that I didn’t sell back in May and catch the peak.
Here’s a video about the Apple 1 auction results:
