[SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million

Sat Aug 1 11:45:52 PDT 2020

Good observations from Laine and Brian. 

So OK, I admit I was too hard on the Apple 1 re “firstness.” While it didn’t come (from Apple itself at least) with a case or a keyboard it did integrate video, tape, and keyboard interfaces onto a single board. Its relative lack of visibility and sales at the time suggests that existing personal computer enthusiasts did not immediately recognized the combination as bringing a compelling advantage. But when the same approach was adopted by the 1977 trio of mass produced personal computers, most importantly the TRS-80, it did lower costs sufficiently to establish a much larger personal computer industry with a different kind of user base. (The Apple 1 plaque makes the connection between the Apple 1 and the software industry sound a little more direct than I would personally be comfortable with.) I’ll verify that our sentences in the book make this clear – we certainly do distinguish between the Apple II/Pet/TRS-80 approach and the S-100 bus + CP/M approach.

However, when an Apple 1 can sell for approximately a thousand times more than an Altair, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that it’s getting 99% plus of its market value from being the first Apple, not the first circuit board to combine a particular set of specification sheet check marks.

Tom

From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> On Behalf Of Brian Berg
Sent: Saturday, August 1, 2020 1:08 PM
To: SIGCIS Listserver <members at sigcis.org>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million

I worked with Steve Wozniak and Tom Coughlin on the Apple I IEEE Milestone (which was scheduled to be dedicated in May, but has been delayed by the  COVID crisis).  The description of its significance, etc., is here <http://ieeemilestones.ethw.org/Milestone-Proposal:Introduction_of_the_Apple_I_Computer:_1976> , including this citation for the bronze plaque (and notice that we used Roman Numeral I and not Arabic Numeral 1):

Introduction of the Apple I Computer, 1976
The features essential for a personal computer were first encompassed by the Apple I: a fully-assembled circuit board with dynamic RAM, video interface, keyboard, mass storage and a high-level programming language. This affordable computer platform triggered a software industry that grew as the sophistication of these essential features grew, and the Apple I thus helped launch the personal computer revolution.

For reference here is the Apple II <http://ieeemilestones.ethw.org/Milestone-Proposal:Introduction_of_the_Apple_I_Computer:_1976>  citation:

Introduction of the Apple II Computer, 1977-78
The Apple II spurred software and hardware suppliers to help create the worldwide personal computing industry. It was the first low-cost computer to offer quick start-up, pre-addressed standard expansion slots, processor RAM-based bit-mapped NTSC color graphics and random access storage in a handsome compact package. It had an economy of design with a BASIC interpreter and assembler in ROM as well as gaming and graphics features.

Brian Berg

On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 10:54 AM Laine Nooney <laine.nooney at gmail.com <mailto:laine.nooney at gmail.com> > wrote:

Is there an earlier example of a commercialized, consumer grade microcomputer with on-board video terminal display and keyboard interface, than the Apple I? i believe the SOL-20 comes out later in 1976 (but i'd be happy to proven wrong here!) (and this might require debate wrt to how we determine a date on the "release" of the Apple I)

this feels like the most significant part of the Apple I--the fact that its design ethos was based on extending a TV terminal's capacity through the embedding of a microprocessor, rather than the more progressivist, linear assumption that Wozniak was trying to make his own version of a more user-friendly Altair. it's a productive complication of the computer history timeline.

Laine Nooney <http://www.lainenooney.com/> 

MCC <http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/>  @ NYU <http://www.nyu.edu/> 
Assistant Professor

-Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0

-Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos

On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 12:37 PM <thomas.haigh at gmail.com <mailto:thomas.haigh at gmail.com> > wrote:

Hmm. I posted this as a kind of quirky head scratching moment, but Lisa asks a valid question so let me attempt an answer informed by our recent work on the Revised History of Modern Computing. The “unhinged” comment referred not to the specific seller, but to the market that might make such a price at least somewhat plausible. (Apparently the listing started at $1.75 million last year, so maybe a further reduction will follow).

First off, the real competence to answer this question would come from economic sociology within which there’s a thriving group of scholars looking at the pricing and collection of artworks. There’s a also a literature on collections and collectors that goes back to Walter Benjamin, and an associated steam looking at “authenticity” and the reproduction of cultural artifacts.

Like artwork the price of the Apple 1 would be set by collectors and auction houses guided by an infrastructure of authentication, evaluation, and (as Debbie shared) previous sales of similar items. Everyone involved in that process has an incentive to see values rise. Compared to a van Gough, Picasso, or Banksy the Apple 1 in question is rather affordable. But unlike traditional artworks, where uniqueness is the point, the Apple 1 is only accidentally rare. 

So the parallel is stronger with well-established expensive collectibles like classic sportscars. Today’s Bloomberg reports a Ferrari sold for $3 million at auction. I assume this is the direct model being followed with Apple 1s. There’s also the recent boom in prices for unopened Nintendo cartridges, the fixation on pristine condition creating an artificial scarcity for a mass produced item for which supply generally exceeds current demand. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/video-games-wata-heritage.html) Like Star Wars toys, old comics, and the former bubble in baseball cards, I think the conventional explanation is that rich men of a certain age want to own the things they dreamed of having as a boy.

No child ever dreamed of having an Apple 1 and hung its poster on the wall. Actual customers quickly traded them in for better machines. And it’s a rather ugly bare circuit board, though the hand built wooden case that’s also part of the eBay offering does evoke the amateur nature of the early personal computing community. But there is certainly a lot of money floating around the tech industry and so (entering my actual area of expertise) the question is how the Apple 1 became the definitive early personal computing artifact that a museum or wealthy collector might justify spending so much money on.

Being a famous _personal_ computer certainly helps. A PDP-1 or Univac 1 would be more historically significant and rarer, but you’d need to know something about history to appreciate that and they are all rather bulky. Fewer people feel personal ties to those technologies, and for the 1950s computers their generations have faded out. (IIRC there was a crash in Elvis memorabilia a few years ago, as the people who cared about Elvis left the marketplace). The Cray 1 is a lot better looking than an Apple 1, more technologically interesting (miles of hardwired connections), and was actually expensive at the time. The one and only prototype Cray 4 processor fetched just $37,500 when auctioned (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/78/), and what claimed to be a piece of the Serial 001 Cray 1 from Los Alamos failed to sell for GBP 550 (https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/). Some significant portions of ENIAC, which does have name recognition, are not controlled by the Smithsonian but I don’t think any kind of secondary market has developed for them.

The Apple 1 was not, in itself, a particularly important or successful machine. It also wasn’t a “first” anything, except the first Apple product. It gets two sentences in our book, which serve as a bridge from the Homebrew Computer Club to the Apple II. The Altair 8800 was much “firstier” and did far more to establish the personal computer category, though people who care about such things have documented many earlier personal computers and microprocessor based machines. An Altair sold at auction for $8,125 in 2017.  (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24495/lot/108/) Cromemcos, IMSAIS, the Processor Technology Sol, etc. were also more visible in 1976 than the Apple 1. The Apple 1 matters because it led to the Apple II, but even that was not the most initially important of the three mass produced personal computers launched in 1977. The TRS-80 sold much better for several years (allegedly until 1981). Steve Wozniak is said to have produced an impressively efficient design, but at the time Chuck Peddle was more renowned as a designer of elegant circuits (having produced the MOS 6502 chip the Apple was based on) and according to Wikipedia he also designed the third of the 1977 trio, the Commodore Pet 2001 (currently being auctioned on eBay for $211.50). So even the Apple II didn’t really establish itself as _the_ important machine of its generation years later. The Apple IIe, which outsold the 1970s models many times over to account for the bulk of Apple II sales, wasn’t launched until 1983 (well after the IBM PC which complicates the traditional succession story).

Rarity clearly matters (which the Apple 1 achieved by not being a particularly strong seller). Wozniak’s cult following is important, but Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the Apple II disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in working condition, and the latter for about $20. The IBM PC matters a lot more to history, but those also cost just a few hundred dollars. A very low serial number might make a difference, but not enough to add several zeros to the prices.

The thing that really sets the Apple 1 apart is the fact that Apple is the world’s most successful company and many people feel a personal connection to it and its products. A billionaire can point to it and say “The first Apple, very rare (subtext, very expensive)” and visitors won’t need a history lecture to appreciate the importance. The story of Woz and Jobs in the garage has become the paradigmatic story of innovation, told in movies, documentaries, a bestselling books. (Misapplication of the Woz/Jobs template crippled the first season of Halt and Catch Fire, so if you haven’t seen it skip that and start with season 2). There’s the allure of thinking that one or both handled this circuit board in that garage. Add the rarity of its first product to that cult following and the amount of money percolating in Silicon Valley and you have a unique combination of factors converging to pump up the value of a computer that didn’t, in itself, much matter to the course of history.

Best wishes,

Tom

From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org <mailto:members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> > On Behalf Of LO*OP CENTER, INC.
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2020 11:34 PM
To: Deborah Douglas <ddouglas at mit.edu <mailto:ddouglas at mit.edu> >
Cc: Sigcis <members at sigcis.org <mailto:members at sigcis.org> >
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million

I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult.

Cheers,

Liza

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas <ddouglas at mit.edu <mailto:ddouglas at mit.edu> > wrote:

For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1 computers in the past 6 years.   

2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/

2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/

2018: $375,000 https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/

2019: $470,000 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html

2020: $458,711.25. https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711

Debbie Douglas

On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net <mailto:mike at willegal.net>  wrote:

I talked to Krishna a few years ago.  I don’t think he is unhinged, but I can’t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be one of the nicer survivors.  It’s funny, when I first became interested in Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the point where condition seems to matter.  Note that the Henry Ford Museum paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that price hasn’t been approached since. 

Regards,

Mike Willegal

On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, <thomas.haigh at gmail.com <mailto:thomas.haigh at gmail.com> > <thomas.haigh at gmail.com <mailto:thomas.haigh at gmail.com> > wrote:

 <https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349> https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a “Make offer” button.

I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a further sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. Though I did recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and monitor. Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this would be a very much smaller purchase relative to net worth. 

Full description at  <http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0> http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0

Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course):  <https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html> https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html.

Best wishes,

Tom

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