An original prototype Apple-1 computer said to have been owned by Steve Jobs and used in a key Apple presentation to Paul Terrell is now being auctioned off and is expected to fetch at least $500,000. 1976 Apple-1 computers have been increasingly circulating at auction, sometimes seemingly the same computer over and over again. In most cases, the Apple-1 computers being auctioned are fully functional and perhaps restored, but this latest computer is not.
The latest collection of Apple memorabilia to be sold by RR Auctions includes a broken Apple-1, which has no case and is labeled “Apple Computer,” is missing parts, and has visible cracks in the motherboard.
Yet it was allegedly an Apple-1 prototype owned by Steve Jobs – who had used it to demonstrate the computer to Paul Terrell. Terrell, then owner of The Byte Shop, agreed to buy 50 Apple-1 computers, provided they were cased and finished.
As a result, this prototype enabled Apple to begin a successful decades-long run.
RR Auctions describes in its listing: “This board has been matched to a 1976 Polaroid photograph taken by Paul Terrell showing the prototype in use. It was first published by Time magazine in 2012 and reported by Achim Baque of the Apple-1 Registry. The current state of the circuit board gives some insight into Jobs’ judgment of it: he saw the prototype not as something to be offered up, but as something to be repurposed. Several integrated circuits have been pulled from their sockets, as have microprocessors and other components, presumably for early production Apple-1 computers.”
While the current owner has not been named, RR Auctions says he or she was given the prototype by Steve Jobs in the early 1990s.
At the time of this writing, it has had 15 bids, the most recent being $278,005. The auction will end on August 18, 2022, at 19:00 Eastern Time. RR Auctions told Fox Business it expects the item to fetch at least $500,000.
