The Original Apple Computer is Being Sold at Auction and is Expected to Fetch $600,000

On December 11, 2014, an original Apple-1 Personal Computer will go up for auction according to Christie’s.

The Apple-1 being up for auction is fully operational and is the same one that Steve Jobs sold out of his parents’ garage in 1976 for $600, except that now it is expected to fetch over half a million dollars.

This is the only known surviving Apple-1 documented that has been sold directly by Steve Jobs himself.

The computer is being sold by Robert Luther, a Virginia collector who bought it at a 2004 police auction before realizing all the details of its history.

Also included in the auction will be cancelled checks, one made out to Apple computer on July 27, 1976 by Charles Ricketts (the original purchaser) for $600 with the note”Purchased July 1976 from Steve Jobs in his parents’ garage in Los Altos”, and another cancelled check for $193 made on August 5, 1976 with the note “Software NA Programmed by Steve Jobs August 1976”.

The auction could fetch more than the $600,000 estimate, as last month,  the Henry Ford organization paid $905,000 at an auction for one of the few remaining Apple-1 computers, more than twice the pre-sale estimate.