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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday October 10 2018, @02:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the shiny-old-apple dept.

Pristine Apple I Sells at Auction for a Jaw-Dropping Price

If you think Apple products are overpriced now, wait until they’re 50 years old.

This original Apple I recently sold at auction for $375,000, making it one of the most expensive 6502-based computers in history. Given that only something like 60 or 70 of the machines were ever made, most built by hand by [Jobs] and [Wozniak], it’s understandable how collectors fought for the right to run the price up from the minimum starting bid of $50,000. And this one was particularly collectible. According to the prospectus, this machine had few owners, the most recent of whom stated that he attended a meeting of the legendary Homebrew Computer Club to see what all the fuss was. He bought it second-hand from a coworker for $300, fiddled with it a bit, and stashed it in a closet. A few years later, after the Apple ][ became a huge phenomenon, he tried to sell the machine to [Woz] for $10,000. [Woz] didn’t bite, and as a result, the owner realized a 125,000% return on his original investment, before inflation.

The machine was restored before hitting the auction block, although details of what was done were not shared. But it couldn’t have been much since none of the previous owners had even used the prototyping area that was so thoughtfully provided on the top edge of the board. It was sold with period-correct peripherals including a somewhat janky black-and-white security monitor, an original cassette tape interface, and a homebrew power supply. Sadly, there’s no word who bought the machine – it was an anonymous purchase.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Wednesday October 10 2018, @05:22AM (4 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday October 10 2018, @05:22AM (#746827) Journal

    And now the seller can buy food for 150k starving babies. What was your point, again?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @07:12AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @07:12AM (#746849)

    That apple fans are hippies and over pay for anything with the apple tag, regardless of function. Hippies are more likely to virtue signal about how much more they care about The People than I. Resellers will, more than likely, reinvest their profits back into their business/hobby than give to dying babies.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @08:26AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @08:26AM (#746868)

      As an old hippie, I reject the notion any of us would buy overpriced gizmos, when we can spend the money on plenty of weed or acid.
      I'd love to make love now if I could but certainly I won't make war.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @08:35AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @08:35AM (#746872)

        I would buy acid but I'm a social retard so that will never happen. Plus the Silk Roads are dead, and I would probably end up getting NBOMe isntead of acid anyway. And weed is so yesterday. Wait, did you say love? Never heard of it.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @02:44PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @02:44PM (#746965)

          "I would buy acid but I'm a social retard so that will never happen."

          If you're a social retard you're supposed to make it, not buy it.