Steve Jobs' Apple-1 to create 'perfect storm' at auction

Imagine a ‘perfect storm’ where historical significance, rarity, huge demand, provenance from some of history’s most important people and fortuitous timing all come together to send the sale price soaring to unprecedented levels.

It might be reasonable to expect that the Apple-1 computer that once graced Steve Jobs' desk will create a perfect storm when it goes on sale at Christie's New York on September 12, 2024; there are three main reasons for this.

The Steve Jobs factor

If you spend any time around startup founders, entrepreneurs, and innovation enthusiasts, you know that Jobs is held in almost mythical reverence. He was a visionary leader, a forward-thinking product developer with a relentless focus on intuitive simplicity, and arguably one of humanity’s most transformative technology thinkers. The iPhone alone—the world’s first multi-touch smartphone, complete with an app store ecosystem—was a legendary achievement that absolutely changed the world.

Steve Jobs’ vision transformed devices into experiences and computers into desirable luxury lifestyle products, and set Apple on the path to becoming the world’s most valuable company. Some 13 years after Jobs’ death, the company still holds that title today, although it has seemingly shifted from a state of constant revolution to a state of measured evolution in his absence.

He is certainly one of the most intriguing figures of our time – the thick sections in the history books will carry his story to future generations. So when a personal item ‘blessed’ by his touch comes up for auction, people take notice. There are enough data points to suggest that his auction ‘multiplier factor’ now surpasses that of Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Steve McQueen, and is approaching that of Albert Einstein.

To name a few, an unsigned copy of his high school yearbook sold for $12,000 a few years ago, and a handwritten note from his time at Atari went for $27,000. A 1976 Apple Computer check signed by Jobs went for $177,000, a signed business card went for $180,000, an Apple II manual signed by Jobs went for $787,000, the original Apple partnership agreement (with Wozniak) went for $1.6 million, and even a primitive phone device made and sold by Wozniak and Jobs (the duo briefly and quite illegally made and sold phone-hacking equipment before founding Apple) went for $31,000, thanks to its provenance.

So the number 1 element of the 'perfect storm' – Steve Jobs – is the most powerful price determinant.

The 'legendary product' factor

The Apple Computer 1 was the first computer produced by Apple in 1976. In fact, Steve Jobs and co-founder Steve Wozniak initially founded the company to sell this machine. To raise money for the prototype, Jobs sold his Volkswagen Kombi and Wozniak pawned his HP calculator.

It was the design Wozniak wanted to give away as free schematics to enthusiasts, until Jobs convinced him to get involved. It was the computer that launched a thousand conspiracy theories when it launched at $666.66. It was known to have been built in a garage, in small numbers – only 200 were ever made, of which only 70 can be counted as the original motherboard – and was quickly superseded by the Apple II, which went completely wild and set the company on the path to global success.

This computer is the reason why Apple exists, and if that were the only factor, the Apple 1 that will go up for auction would be a legendary product with a guaranteed place in history.

There were no doubt plenty of people motivated to dig into their warehouses, attics and basements when Christie's sold an Apple-1 for $190,867 (£133,250) in 2010. That was a big jump from the previous best price we could verify, which was $50,000 on eBay in 2009. Before Y2K, you could buy one for under $10,000.

The price record was set in June 2012 at $374,500, in November 2012 at $627,000, in May 2013 at $671,400, with the last record being broken in October 2014 when Bonhams sold an Apple-1 for $905,000.

Apple-1s in varying states of presentation and integrity still show up at auction regularly, fetching notable sales of $815,000 in 2016, $736,863 in 2020, and $677,196 in 2021, but the average price for the 50-plus auction sales since the record was set a decade ago is now under $500,000 — for some inexplicable reason, the market for the Apple-1 has cooled.

Maybe the good ones were considered national treasures and locked away in science museums? No! When a nearly perfect example sold in 2021, we had to write an article explaining why the $500,000 price was a bargain.

It definitely won't be released for this cheap.

The Paul G. Allen Factor

As if it weren’t enough that this legendary product led to the founding of a company that once dominated the world and was the personal machine of one of the greatest business and technology figures of our time, there’s another big factor at play here.

The sale of the Paul G. Allen Collection will go down in history as one of the most significant treasures ever assembled and sold.

Allen had the ‘tentbird gene’ and despite a life characterised by philanthropy in countless ways, as co-founder of Microsoft, he created one of the largest self-made fortunes in history and gave it back to society. All proceeds from this auction will go to charitable causes. Both Allen and co-founder Bill Gates have given away more of their personal wealth to the greater good (a word that keeps coming up) than any other individual in history, and Gates is still actively promoting the concept of ‘giving back’ to the world’s wealthiest people.

Over the course of his fascinating life, Allen amassed two of history’s finest and most valuable collections around his greatest passions: the history of art and technology. Here’s a small sampling of the art:

The majority of the art collection was sold in November 2022, selling for $1,622,249,500, making it the largest single-owner sale in auction history and surpassing the previous world record by halfway through the first night of the sale. The previous record was held by the Macklowe Collection, and our article on that sale can help frame the magnitude of the relevant factors at play in this auction and this particular item.

That night, five paintings sold for more than $100 million a piece. The oarsmen in the audience represented prominent figures in the art world. Normally, such people would have attended from afar, but they were all there to experience what they knew was coming: Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version) Georges Seurat's Paul Cézanne sold for $149.24 million Sainte-Victoire Mountain $137.8 million was obtained, Look at the Cypriot Vincent Van Gogh's painting sold for $117.2 million Motherhood II Paul Gauguin's painting sold for $105.7 million Birch forest Gustav Klimt's work fetched $104.6 million.

The world will watch

Allen’s equally magnificent collection of technological firsts is now up for auction, and every item in this virtual museum auction is made even better by Allen’s presence, and has earned the honor of being chosen for a collection of the finest existing examples of a technological first. No expense was spared in assembling this collection—Allen’s funds were virtually unlimited—so it’s definitely the best of the best.

While the jewel of the collection is Albert Einstein's famous letter to FDR, which ushered in the atomic age, there is also a historic, intact example of all the well-known groundbreaking technological firsts: the 4-rotor German Enigma encryption machine, an Engelbert Computer mouse, a Computer Space Arcade Console, a Malling-Hansen Writing Ball, a Cray Supercomputer… and Steve Jobs' Apple-1.

Although the prices of these objects pale in comparison to those of Allen's art collection, they all represent the finest examples of technological firsts worldwide, products that changed everything from then on.

The tremendous social advances these inventions have enabled have occurred so recently that their true value to society has not yet been fully understood…and perhaps 100 years from now, the works in this auction may be worth more than the paintings that sold for $1.6 billion.

A perfect storm

Needless to say, these three powerful factors make Steve Jobs’ personal Apple 1 from the Paul G. Allen collection as desirable an auction opportunity as any piece of technology that’s ever gone under the hammer. If a Steve Jobs business card is worth $180,000… how much more valuable is the gunman’s gun?

Timing is everything

We believe that for decades, the market for important technological memorabilia has been largely undervalued because it has not yet fully grasped the enormous implications of recent technological breakthroughs in historical perspective.

Some of these important artifacts were sold for peanuts, but 50, 100, or 1,000 years from now, they will be of immense importance to human history as their role in the digital renaissance will be recognized for the impact they have had on society. Right now, the digital age is still dawning, and we are in the midst of a major societal transformation as the internet and countless other technological advances have revolutionized almost everything we do.

This computer was on Jobs' desk in 1976, when Apple was first starting out. It played a major role in Jobs' “changing the world.” In 2026, two years later, Apple's 50th anniversary^pearl Apple currently has around $165 billion in cash, so if it decides to buy back some of its history for the occasion, it will simply do so.

If Apple decides to pass on the opportunity to buy back Steve's Apple-1, there will be a lot of interest in the opportunity.

If this computer goes on sale in 2026, when Apple's historical significance is being celebrated publicly, it will logically fetch a higher return than it did on September 12. Speculators can therefore expect a 24-month return on their investment.

In a just world, it would be a national treasure and would be displayed in a museum; official estimates suggest that most public institutions will be able to get their hands on it, but it will almost certainly sell for a much higher price; if not, someone (hopefully a museum) has found a good opportunity.

Finally, for those of us who don’t have the capital to play the heavyweight memorabilia game, watching major auctions seems to be quickly becoming an engaging spectator sport. It’s all live, entertaining and informative… and free.

We look forward to watching this.

Source: Christie's