Rare Apple-1 computer up for auction

Christie’s, the high-end auction house, is selling off one of Appledom’s rarest relics: an original Apple-1 personal computer, famously designed and built in a parental garage by company founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976.

The Apple-1 machine, for which Christie’s will open the bidding Nov. 23, is expected to fetch $160,000 to $240,000.

The lot comes with the original components of the Apple-1, made at a time when owning a “personal computer” meant ordering a box of electronic parts and assembling them with a soldering iron. The Apple-1 was different, however: It came largely preassembled.

“True, the Apple-1 was sold without a keyboard, monitor or power supply, and it didn’t even have a casing, but in principle it worked straight out of the box,” wrote Christie’s specialist Julian Wilson.

The lot features a signed, typed letter from Jobs that shipped with the original device, explaining a few of its features. At the time it was first released, the Apple-1 retailed for the gimmicky price of $666.66.

Among the Easter eggs of this lot is a peek into Apple Inc.’s design origins. Embossed on the Apple-1’s operation manual is the original logo for “Apple Computer Co.”

It shows a little woodcut-like rendering of Isaac Newton reading under an apple tree. Above him hangs, of course, a shining apple — the predecessor of the sleek, metallic apple logo that has evolved over nearly 35 years.

david.sarno@latimes.com