A Steve Jobs memorabilia auction is now live online, and items available include the desk from the famous garage where Apple started, the first check the two Steves ever signed, Steve’s bow ties from high school and much more.
The auction also includes a wide range of general Apple memorabilia with starting bids as low as $100 …
The auction is being run by RR Auction and ends on 30 January.
Notable items include the earliest known Apple 1 prototype – which has a starting bid of $50,000 and an estimate of over half a million dollars – and the first ever check issued by Apple, with a starting bid of $25,000 and the same estimate.
A number of the items have estimates which seem on the low side to me. This includes an Apple 1 Byte Shop wooden case personally owned by Steve Jobs with a starting bid of just $500 and an estimate of $5,000, and Steve’s desk with a starting bid of $5,000 and an estimate of $25,000 plus.
A number of posters personally owned by Steve are available with starting bids of just $200.
The auction also includes some pretty obscure items such as an Apple 1 heatsink and a ribbon cable, both given some value by the fact that they were personally owned by Steve.
Wired reports that many of the personal possessions are being sold by John Chovanec, Steve’s stepbrother.
On one memorable occasion, Jobs took Chovanec into his childhood bedroom—in the house with the famed garage where the first Apple computers were assembled—and fired up an early Macintosh to deliver a personal chronicle of how it was developed. Now Chovanec, who wound up in possession of much of the contents of that bedroom, has consigned a collection of the ephemera to RR Auction for sale.
The $500 check was to circuit board designer Howard Cantin, who worked on the Apple 1 board. Canton said that Steve offered him a choice of a check or AAPL stock, and he opted for the former.
Image: 9to5Mac/RR Auctions
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