Apple-1 computer sold out of Steve Jobs’ garage could pull in $600K or more

On December 11, Christie's Auction House will put up an original Apple-1 Personal Computer, which was sold out of Steve Jobs' Palo Alto, California, garage for $600 back in 1976. Christie's estimates that the computer, sold to Charles Ricketts, is worth between $400,000 and $600,000, “the highest estimate yet for an original Apple-1 offered at auction,” the auction house wrote in a press release.

An Apple-1 specialist was hired by Christie's to see whether the Ricketts Apple-1 had suffered any deterioration. He was able to run “the standard original software program, Microsoft BASIC, and also an original Apple-1 Star Trek game” on the vintage computer. It will be sold along with two cancelled checks from Charles Ricketts made out to Apple Computer. The first is for the amount of $600, and Ricketts later added a note on the check that read, “Purchased July 1976 from Steve Jobs in his parents’ garage in Los Altos.” The second cancelled check is for $193 and contains a note that reads “Software NA Programmed by Steve Jobs August 1976.”

According to Reuters, the Ricketts Apple-1 was purchased by entrepreneur Bruce Waldack in 1999. Waldack lost his fortune and moved out of the US; he died in 2007. In 2004, a Virginia collector named Robert Luther acquired the computer when he bought a storage locker at a police auction. Luther apparently did not have any details on the computer's history.

Now, Luther is auctioning off the Ricketts Apple-1, no doubt confident that he'll see healthy returns. "My computer had been purchased directly from Jobs, and based on the buyer's address on the check, he lived four miles from Jobs," Luther told Reuters. In October, the Henry Ford Foundation paid $905,000 for another vintage Apple-1; back in 2012, an Apple-1 motherboard was auctioned off at Sothebys for $374,500—more than double the high estimate for what the board would bring in.

The December 11 auction will also include the Ron Wayne Apple Archive, which comes directly from Apple cofounder and consultant Wayne. The archive is estimated to be worth $30,000 to $50,000, and it “comprises the original working proofs of the Apple-1 Operation Manual, with [Wayne's] original company logo,” Christie's press release says. “This proof page of the logo may be the oldest copy of an Apple logo in existence. Wayne possessed and retained these proof copies because he laid out the entire design and contents of the Manual, in partnership with Steve Jobs. The lot will also include design renderings, bluelines, sketches and diagrams for a proposed Apple II personal computer cabinet.”