Vintage Apple $668,000 Auction Price Gives New Hope To Hoarders

A vintage Apple 1 computer circuit board that originally sold in 1976 for a then-outrageous $666 has now been purchased by an unnamed Asian investor for a cool $668,000. A German auction house announced the new record-setting price for an Apple 1 circuit board on Saturday, stating that it was only one of six known working models left in the entire world.

Before you get too excited by that old computer junk you picked up at a garage sale, keep in mind that the Apple 1 didn’t come from just any old garage. According to the Breker auction house statement, the Apple 1 is the famous device originally built in a family garage by Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

The vintage Apple 1 just sold for $668,000 carried Wozniak’s signature.

Breker’s previous high price for selling a vintage Apple 1 was a still-staggering $550,000.

In another sign that the Asian economy is roaring back, another Asian investor recently paid a record-smashing $400,000 for a Belgian racing pigeon modestly named Bolt after Olympics champion Usain Bolt himself.

Sigh. Trust me, most of that old electronics junk you’ve got stuffed in the attic is just going to cost you a recycling fee to get it cleared out.

But I’ll admit it. You’re not the only one who is going to take another look at hoarded electronics after learning about the vintage Apple 1 $668,000 selling price. In case you don’t know what you’re looking for, here is a photo for the famous 1976 Interface Age ad where the Apple 1 was first offered to the public:

In the 1960s, they had LSD. But in the 1970s, nerds and geeks have said that just viewing the ad awakened them to the new age of the personal computer which would be underway sooner than anyone had believed possible at the time.

What do you think of the record-setting vintage Apple 1 $668,000 price?

[Apple 1 photo from 1976 Interface Age ad via Wikimedia Commons]

[computer motherboard photo by Jiggo thekop via Shutterstock]