Original Apple computer sells for Sh33 million

A fully operational Apple computer that company co-founder Steve Jobs sold out of his parents’ garage in 1976 for $600 sold for $365,000 (Sh32.8 million) at Christie’s on Thursday.

The Ricketts Apple-1 Personal Computer, named after its original owner Charles Ricketts, is the only known surviving Apple-1 documented as having been sold directly by Jobs to an individual from the Los Altos, California family home, according to the auction house.

The price fell shy of Christie’s estimate of $400,000 (Sh36,000 million) to $600,000 (Sh56 million) and was far less than the $905,000 (Sh82 million) paid by the Henry Ford organisation in October for one of the computers. Fewer than 50 original Apple-1s are believed to be in existence of the few hundred originally produced.