Apple I Computer Fetches $671K in Auction

If you thought a coffee date with Apple CEO Tim Cook was expensive, vintage Apple hardware will set you back even more – though just barely.

An original version of the Apple I computer – signed by co-founder Steve Wozniak – fetched a staggeringly high price at a recent auction. The final price of $671,000 was more than $200,000 higher than Auction Team Breaker estimated as the highest price that Apple's first-ever computer might have generated.

The system, originally owned by electrical engineer Fred Hatfield, is one of 46 known units still in existence out of an original lot of 200 systems crafted by Wozniak and late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. The auctioned-off system even came with a letter from Jobs himself, offering Hatfield all of $400 if he would trade in his Apple I for an upgraded Apple II.

Hatfield seems to have (wisely) declined.

The $671,000 final bid was all of $31,000 higher than the last Apple I unit sold by the same auction house last November. Previously, Apple I systems have set sales records of around $375,000 when auctioned; the market for original Apple devices has certainly ballooned since that point.

The aforementioned Apple I computer was originally set at a minimum sales price of $116,000. However, the price inflation could be attributed to the simple fact that the Apple I remains a core part of the company's history – "the physical artifact that traces this incredible success to its origins," said Computer History Museum curator Dag Spicer in an interview with the New York Times.

And, we note, the fact that the system itself seems to function sans issue.

It's not as if previous Apple I systems have always managed to sell high at auctions. According to the Times, a non-working Apple I computer didn't even manage to meet its reserve price of slightly over $75,000 when auctioned last year in London. Hatfield's system is functional – helping it to draw a higher price, in addition to the colorful story behind the system itself.

It's unknown who purchased the Apple I system up for grabs, save for the fact that he's apparently some kind of "wealthy entrepreneur from the Far East," reports United Press International. The system's seller is similarly mysterious; a "young American who works for a software company," who brought the system to the auction cloaked in a blanket, reports the Times.