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Mystery Woman Discards Apple I Computer at Recycling Center

posted by cmn32480 on Thursday June 04 2015, @08:03AM   
from the say-what??? dept.

"gewg_" writes:

The San Jose Mercury News reports

A South Bay [Milpitas, California] recycling firm is looking for a woman who, in early April, dropped off boxes of electronics that she had cleaned out from her house after her husband died. About two weeks later, the firm, Clean Bay Area, discovered inside one of the boxes a rare find: a vintage Apple I, one of only about 200 first-generation desktop computers put together by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne in 1976.

The recycling firm sold the Apple I this month for $200,000 to a private collection, Vice President Victor Gichun said. And now, because company policy is to split proceeds 50-50 with the donor, he's looking for the mystery woman who refused to get a receipt or leave her name.

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Original Submission

• interesting... (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @03:05AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2015, @03:05AM (#192351)

  It is 'interesting' and this story has been doing the rounds.

  My wife had an interesting POV. "how would I know what of your stuff is worth anything unless you told me?"

  It is a very valid point. 99% of the HW I own is worth pretty much take it to the bin and tip it in. 1% or so is maybe worth something on ebay.

  Put yourself in this ladies shoes. Your husband died. He had piles of old motherboards in the garage. What do you do? Do you assume it is all worth tons of money? Or do you take it to recycle center? Remember you want to clean up the big piles of trash that are in your way because maybe you want to sell the house.

  I have told my wife to recycle it all. It is worth pretty much nothing. The video games are worth a bit. I told her to find someone and get a bit out of it and dont worry about 'being ripped off'. From her POV it is *GARBAGE*.

  Rare items are all over the place. But in reality just because it is rare does not mean it is worth anything to me. Sure you *might* come across something that 'makes you rich' but 99.999999% of the time you will just be digging thru junk. For example in this case there are what 50 MBs that were ever made? The likelyhood of finding one is near nil.

  I only keep some of my stuff because I find it interesting or has some sort of 'mental' value to me. Not because it has real value.

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