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$640,000 for an Apple 1, $16,000 for an Altair!

Payment will need to be by bank transfer not by paypal unless you have an excellent ebay rating, then an exception could be made, email before bidding or buying.
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You got to be kidding me... :rolleyes:
 
Inflation calculators on the Interwebs say that $666 in US dollars in 1976 would be around $2,700 now.

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Put another way, a $640,000 price tag on an Apple I is about a 960x return on investment over a 36-year time period. The Compound Annual Growth Rate (Annualized Return) of the S&P 500 over those same years, adjusted for inflation, would have netted about a 10x return.

http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm

If I had a time machine, I think I'd go back and buy some Apple I computers. And I wouldn't sell them all at once.

Who knew?

- Earl
 
There are only a few dozen (maybe) Apple I's around, I suspect that they are just going to be flipped over and over again.

You would probably make some money just setting up a photo booth in silicon valley selling the geeks a snapshot holding a real Apple I for $500 a pop in Steve Jobs old garage with Woz sitting in the background for added authenticity.
 
The Apple I, like a few other machines, is becoming the Honus Wagner baseball card or the Superman #1 comic. The machine has gone well beyond the vintage computing community into the realm of high-dollar collectors.

The $600K investor will probably make his money back fairly quickly.

The sad part about the Altair is that it's a really bad example. The PS is totally redone, the CPU card has a replacement chip, the RAM isn't even MITS, there is no original documentation, etc.

eBay value for that system would be $2K +/-.

Not sure what's up with this site, but if they want to list my Altair it's twice what that machine is, so... :D
 
Unknown_K said:
You would probably make some money just setting up a photo booth in silicon valley selling the geeks a snapshot holding a real Apple I for $500 a pop in Steve Jobs old garage with Woz sitting in the background for added authenticity.
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:D Genius! I actually had a picture taken of me like that at the Vintage Computer Museum in Mountain View, CA. No cost though, and the Apple I was inside an enclosure so it couldn't be physically touched.
 
Yeah, Altairs have been creeping up in price for years (decades) seems almost like maybe $800/$1000 a decade. I typically see them lately in the upper $2000s although there have been a few exceptions for whatever reason. I remember in the 90s wanting one so bad and not being able to afford it at their common $800 price.

As for the Apple I at auction it's one of the best collections I've seen and was working. Most of the other 5/6 figure Apple I were display pieces and no guarantee to work. Certainly out of most computer collection leagues though.
 
barythrin said:
As for the Apple I at auction it's one of the best collections I've seen and was working. Most of the other 5/6 figure Apple I were display pieces and no guarantee to work. Certainly out of most computer collection leagues though.
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Working ones seem to be what the collectors with real money are looking for. The few non-documented and non working ones have failed to sell with bids in the 65-75k range.

This one that just sold for 640k, was heavily documented (youtube videos and more) and worked. It was not a perfect example as it had a lot of rework in the back and had a lot of replacement parts from back in the 90's (i.e. Sprague caps, chips). Also strangely enough all the high priced boards that have sold are the later NTI boards. We haven't seen a pre-nti byteshop board come up for auction recently that works. I would expect being one of the first 50 when one that is working and documented comes up, it may be worth a bit more. Also remember one reason these things go for a lot is that many were destroyed by Steve Jobs when they were traded in for Apple IIs and also that the giant electrolytic caps are 35+ years old and the risk of powering them on is pretty great. Think about it this way, would you risk 75k worth of board to make it worth 500k more... maybe but most wouldn't. I know there is one pre NTI working board out there that the owner has bypassed the caps by using an Apple II power supply thus avoid the risk, but that is cheating ;) as the idea for most people is when you say working, it's working just like it did in 1976.

Cheers,
Corey
 
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