Handwritten note from Steve Jobs sells for way more than 100 MacBook Pros
Vintage Apple gadgets usually rake in a tidy sum at auctions, but a handwritten note by founder Steve Jobs has just sold for six figures.
A piece of paper featuring the draft of an ad handwritten by Mr Jobs sold for $175,759, six times more than the expected estimate.
The ad is an early advertising draft for the Apple Computer-1 written and signed as ‘steven jobs’ in 1976.
Originally launched in 1976 as the Apple Computer, it later became known as the Apple I or Apple-1.
The contents of the note are pretty basic, with just the tech specifications of Apple’s first computer with Mr Jobs’ signature in lowercase print.
In the note, Mr Jobs included his parents’ home address and phone number which was the original headquarters of the Apple Computer Company, as it was known back then.
The item was part of an auction listing at RR Auction that included two Polaroids of the working Apple prototype, photographed at The Byte Shop and annotated by Mr Jobs.
According to Apple historian Corey Cohen, the technical specifications of this handwritten advertising draft match neatly with the original advertisement for the Apple-1, which was first printed in the July 1976 issue of Interface Magazine.
This makes it the first advert of the tech giant that’s currently valued at $2.79 trillion.
In the same magazine issue, the advertisement was accompanied by a product overview article with quotes by Mr Jobs as Director of Marketing and Stephen Wozniak as Director of Engineering at Apple.
This first marketing blitz granted Apple the requisite funding to evolve from ‘two guys in a garage’ to two of the most influential tech visionaries.
According to the auction house, an unnamed childhood friend of Mr Jobs obtained the handwritten note while visiting the Apple cofounder back in 1976.
The friend recounted meeting Mr Jobs in the 8th grade in 1968 when he was new to the school and ‘looking for someone to hang out with for the summer’.
‘So he and I became fast friends, riding bicycles all around the Sunnyvale and Los Altos area and even biking from his house over the Santa Cruz Mountains to the beach,’ wrote the friend.
‘During the time that the Apple 1 was in progress, I visited Steve several times (Christmas of 1975, spring break 1976, and summer of 1976) and saw computers being tested in boxes in the garage. It was during one of these visits that Steve gave me a Polaroid photo of the computer, a Polaroid screenshot of Apple 1 Basic, and a handwritten offer of bare boards for $75 each.’
The handwritten note was among several historic Apple items that recently went on sale at RR Auction, including a signed check from Jobs and Apple cofounder Wozniak that sold for $135,261.
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