Yet another Apple 1 auction at Christie's

I guess that's capital gains tax. He had owned it since 1979/80 and paid nothing for it. He traded old computer equipment. I wish the owner the best of luck, but it seems the big bucks are from that German auction house.

Cheers,
Corey

This is an online auction, a fairly new thing for Christies, and with two weeks to go, it's already at 300,000. It will be interesting to see if the Breker auction prices are sustainable.

Regards,
Mike W.

From all the press (finally Christie's is learning from Sotherbys and Breker) it seems $300,000 is the starting bid.

It will be interesting to see the final bid or if it even sells at all, I haven't looked to see if there was a bid. The last two Christie's auctions failed to reach their reserve, but they weren't working setups and more importantly they were not heavily advertised in the press. While many reading the articles can't afford one, the press helps bring people outside the computer world into the awareness of owning this kind of "art", if you follow my drift. At these prices there really aren't too many computer people who can afford to own one now (even a google millionaire would have to think twice about spending nearly 3/4 of a million dollars on a piece of "art"). . But there are plenty of successful business men who can and do on a regular basis and I'm sure the art speculator is now in the game who will buy one and hold onto it for 10 years and then sell. The big question is "are these prices sustainable over the long term", especially now that the price is so high the available units are coming out of the woodwork and people are firing them up to increase the value.

Cheers,
Corey

I can't really understand why the working status of an Apple 1 would make such a difference to its value. Providing the PCB isn't completely trashed, pretty well any unit could be made operational with relatively little troubleshooting. I suspect most of the existing units would work if actually powered up with any missing chips replaced.

Also, one has to wonder at these prices how long it will be before someone attempts to sell a forgery. It's probably only a matter of time before that happens.

I suspect most of the existing units would work if actually powered up with any missing chips replaced.

Part of the authenticity of the board is the date on the chips. Original chips equals more authentic equals higher price.

Right Corey?

Steven

Phil,

Part of the authenticity of the board is the date on the chips. Original chips equals more authentic equals higher price.

In theory that might be the expectation, but in practice it seems that it makes little difference. A number of the Apple 1 boards that have gone for six figures have had replacement 6502, RAM, and even PROM chips.

The date of the chips is also pretty meaningless in terms of authenticity in any case. With patience chips with appropriate date codes can be sourced. Is an Apple 1 still completely authentic if it has replacement chips with period correct (even exact match) date codes?

I suspect most of the existing units would work if actually powered up with any missing chips replaced.

Phil,

Part of the authenticity of the board is the date on the chips. Original chips equals more authentic equals higher price.

Right Corey?

Steven :)

There are what I would call acceptable replacements. As always it's better if the original or at least correct replacements were there.

The acceptable replacements are the parts that commonly go for example the 6820 is directly hooked up to the keyboard connector. That introduces the potential of an external part killing the 6820. The 74s257DC (on the early byteshop boards) can go as well, also if they aren't within spec the cassette interface doesn't seem to work. Missing ROMs will impact the value, but having a set that works can overide the missing aspect. For example a non working board missing the roms is impacted, but if the board works the increase in value makes up for that. If the original ROMs are present then it is even better.

Now sockets do fail on these machines or are unreliable, these were used during the hardware "hacker" age of computing, so many boards have modifications, cuts and even damage. So not all boards could be made to work reliably without major rework or restoration, in some cases this might not be pretty. I had the opportunity to buy a board last year before it went up on eBay and turned it down after mulling all the modifications and cuts to the board. Now I hear that board may be working now, but the new owner had to hack up the board on the back (that would bother me).

As for the actual auctions that recently sold for $$$$ recently, they all were NTI boards with the much more common signetics parts. We have not seen a ByteShop board that works come up for sale in a long long time. They use Fairchild parts which for the time frame/date code are much harder to come by in the correct package, logo and such.

The one that sold for 300+K last year in NY was all original parts (any that were replaced were replaced with the exact same DC and part). It had a minor mod in the breadboard section that was removed. I don't recall but I don't think any of the breadboard pads were lifted which is important to some people.

The one that sold for 640k last year in Germany had extensive reworking in the back of the board and some minor hacks, but did have the "acceptable" parts to be missing (i.e. ones that tended to go). I also believe the large blue caps were refreshed in the 90's. This system I would expect to be the most reliable working unit since the weak points that could be easily replaced were. However it was not 100% authentic because of that. Also the ACI cassette tape adapter was a replica from Mike Willegal.

The one that recently sold for 670k is really a prize. While it did have some custom printer interface work that was removed, I think only one or two pads had lifted on the back. But the documentation was amazing, and the chips were all correct. It also included an ACI, but this one was not a replica.

I think the Apple-1 that will take the cake will be when Woz decides to unload one of his (I'm not sure Jobs ever owned one or at least kept it). I expect at somepoint Woz will do this for charity, he really is that kind of guy, he really cares. My guess something to do with education of kids.

Cheers,
Corey

http://www.theledger.com/article/20130621/news/130629910?p=1&tc=pg

Sold for $390.000 to italian firm Bolaffi, specialized in collectibles, and now proudly advertised on their site...

http://www.bolaffi.com/index.php?method=news&action=zoom&id=14167