Wealth

Rare Apple computer's 135,651% price hike

Reuters with CNBC.com
WATCH LIVE

One of the few remaining examples of Apple's first pre-assembled computer, Apple-1, sold for $905,000 at an auction in New York on Wednesday, far outstripping expectations.

The relic, which sparked a revolution in home computing, is thought to be one of the first batch of 50 Apple-1 machines assembled by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in Steve Job's family garage in Los Altos, California in the summer of 1976.


Motherboard of Apple 1 computer
Source: Bonhams

Auction house Bonhams had said it expected to sell the machine, which was working as of September, for between $300,000 and $500,000.

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There were few buyers for the first Apples until Paul Terrell, owner of electronics retailer Byte Shop, placed an order for 50 and sold them for $666.66 each.

The $905,000 price represents a 135,651 percent increase from the original $666.66 price.

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After that initial success, Jobs and Wozniak produced another 150 and sold them to friends and other vendors.

Previously, a working Apple-I was sold by Sotheby's auction house in 2012 for $374,500.

Fewer than 50 original Apple 1s are believed to survive.

—CNBC's Katie Little contributed to this article