An original Apple I computer, one of only 200 ever made, fetched £133,250 at auction at Christie’s in London yesterday.
The lot comprised the motherboard, manuals, invoice and, uniquely, a signed letter from Apple founder and current CEO Steve Jobs. It was sold to Marco Boglione, an Italian businessman and collector who intends to restore it to working order and add it to his collection of Macs.
Boglione’s brother Francesco told the Associated Press that Marco bought the Apple I ‘because he loves computers’.
The caseless computer cost just $666.66 in July 1976, about £372 at the contemporary exchange rate.
Other lots at the Christie’s auction included the writings of Alan Turing, one of the pioneers of modern computing. However, the papers were unsold, raising hopes they might yet find their way to the computing museum at Bletchley Park. Turing worked at the estate during World War II, when it was home to British code-breaking efforts.
