Steve Jobs’ original 1976 garage-built PC fetches $365,000
12 Dec 2014
A fully-functional Apple computer of the model that the company's late co-founder Steve Jobs sold out of his parents' garage in 1976 for $600 has sold for $365,000 at a Christie's auction.
The Ricketts Apple-1 Personal Computer, named after its original owner Charles Ricketts, is the only known surviving Apple-1 documented as having been sold directly by Jobs to an individual from the family's Los Altos, California family home, according to the auction house.
The price fell short of Christie's estimate of $400,000 to $600,000 and was far less than the $905,000 paid by the Henry Ford organisation in October for one of the computers. Fewer than 50 original Apple-1s are believed to be in existence out of the few hundred originally produced.
Also at the sale on Thursday, Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, with the help of various foundations and private donors, bought a Bacchic figure supporting the globe by 17th-century artist Adrien de Vries for $27.9 million, exceeding the sculpture's pre-sale estimate of $15 million to $25 million.
The Rembrandt Society, the BankGiro Loterij, VSB fund, Mondriaan Fund and others helped fund the purchase.
''It follows the trend of masterpieces achieving outstanding prices,'' said Jussi Pylkkanen, global president of Christie's and the auctioneer for the sale.
One of the expected highlights of the auction, which Christie's dubbed the Exceptional Sale, was withdrawn at the 11th hour when the estate of Joan Fontaine, who died at the age of 96 a year ago, pulled her best actress Oscar for the Alfred Hitchcock film ''Suspicion'' from the sale of her collection.
Prices have been on the rise for relics of computing history, which have been snapped up by institutions.
In 2013, Christie's sold another 1976 Apple-1 for $387,750 and in 2010 another for $212,267 in London.
