A wooden Apple-1, the first computer model ever marketed by the apple firm from 1976, was auctioned Tuesday, November 9 in southern California and could go for more than a million dollars. The company founded by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs only built a total of 200 Apple-1s, all hand-assembled at Jobs, most of which sold at the time for $ 666.66. The copy auctioned by the John Moran auction house in Monrovia, near Los Angeles, is estimated at between 400,000 and 600,000 dollars, but could be sold even more, say specialists. A working Apple-1 had been sold for more than $ 900,000 in 2014 by the house of Bonhams.
Read alsoA copy of Apple's first computer sold at auction for half a million dollars
According to expert Corey Cohen, interviewed by the
Los Angeles Times
newspaper
, 60 Apple-1s have been identified to date but only 20 of them, including the one sold by the house of John Moran, still work.
The copy is all the more original because it has an exotic wood case, the koa, native to the Hawaiian Islands, a rarity that has earned it a place in a sale otherwise devoted to contemporary art and design. .
There are only six known examples of Apple-1 with koa housing, according to the catalog of the house of John Moran.
Read also An Apple 1 computer over 40 years old sold for $ 375,000
In 1976, the Apple-1s were among the first personal computer models already assembled (with the components already soldered onto the motherboard in particular) but they often sold without a case or keyboard.
The copy bought at the time by a professor at Chaffey College, put on sale Tuesday,
"is a bit like the holy grail for collectors of electronics and vintage computers"
, assures Corey Cohen.
This professor sold it in 1977 to one of his students, who kept it to this day and chose to remain anonymous.
