Historic 1976 Apple Check Signed By Jobs And Woz Smashes Auction Estimates At $2.4M
Apple memorabilia tends to fetch exorbitant sums at auction, especially when it's an item containing a signature by Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak, two of company's three co-founders. Even so, a check for $500 signed by both Steves shattered expectations at auction with the winning bid exceeding $2.4 million, which is more than 4,800 times the amount it was written for (and about 1,000 more after adjusting for inflation). It's one of the major highlights of the 50th anniversary Apple auction.
The dual signatures of Jobs and Woz undoubtedly played a big role in the check fetching such an enormous sum. However, adding to appeal as a rare collectible, the check is labeled "No. 1" and predates Apple's formal incorporation by over two weeks. As such, it is one of the earliest recorded business transactions and documents for a company that, decades later, has a market cap approaching 4 trillion dollars.
"This is one of the most important financial documents in Apple history," said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction. “It captures Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak’s first true business transaction, and the final result shows that collectors recognized its significance above any other Apple material ever brought to market."
Jobs and Woz wrote the check out to Howard Cantin, a printed circuit board (PCB) designer who at the time was employed at Atari, to translate the duo's Apple-1 schematic into a manufactured part. While no address appears on the check, later checks using the same bank account number had Apple's first official address at 770 Welch Rd. Ste. 154, Pala Alto.
"During this early period, Jobs and Woz envisioned the Apple-1 as a bare-board kit to be soldered together by hobbyist users—their initial target market, Silicon Valley's Homebrew Computer Club. As the two were effectively penniless, Jobs sold his beloved Volkswagen Bus and Woz sold his prized HP-65 pocket calculator to raise the initial working capital to fund the Apple Computer Company," RR Auction explains.
The check bears historical significance in that regard as well—banking records show Apple made an initial deposit of $500 on the same day Jobs and Woz wrote the check. Looking back, it's arguably the most important $500 in the history of Apple, considering everything that's transpired since then.
"Cantin’s involvement was crucial: although Wozniak’s design defined the logic, the aesthetics and manufacturability of the Apple-1 board depended on Cantin’s layout work. The board that Cantin laid out in 1976 used manual techniques (tape for trace routing) and helped form the physical foundation of what became one of the most celebrated early personal computers," RR Auction states.
The winning bid, which includes a buyer's premium fee, came to $2,409,886 for the historic 1979 check, far above the auction's estimate of at least $500,000.
