Christie’s Auction house, one of the most established auctioneer in the world today is expected to place one of the most remarkable devices in human history under the hammer next month. The Apple 1 computer is expected to be auctioned off for USD$126,000 when it is unveiled then.
The piece of computer, which is no longer operable is one of the 200 first batch of computers produced back in 1976. The circuit board is said to be hand-built by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple which have been instrumental in changing the world of end-user computing in recent years. According to Christie’s, why this piece of item is interesting is because it was very limited. With only 200 produced, it was then sold for $666.66. Not many units of this computers are still around today and Christie’s claims that there are only about 50 of the Apple-1 computers still available.
James Hyslop, a scientific specialist with Christie’s said that this is the model that changed the world because it started Apple, which today is the most valuable company in the world. Hence, with a price tag of USD$126,000, it is more symbolic than valuable. However, at this price, it is still regarded to be lower than the market rate because Christie’s competitor, Sotheby’s recently auctioned the same model off for USD$374,000 last June. The difference is that the Sotheby’s version was a working unit which was one of the 6 left in the world which is still in working condition. The Christie’s one is missing some of its parts like the DRAM.
