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Vintage Apple Computer Could Fetch $800,000 at Auction

The first product ever made by the tech behemoth Apple went up for auction on Thursday and is expected to fetch bids between $463,000 and $772,000.
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/ Source: CNBC.com

The first product ever made by the tech behemoth Apple went up for auction on Thursday and is expected to fetch bids between $463,000 and $772,000.

The Apple-1 computer, created in 1976 by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, helped put the company on its road to global prominence. The Apple-1 was superseded by the more advanced Apple-II in 1977, and the original PCs were discontinued and most of them returned to the California-based company.

This makes the Apple-1 up for sale this week by Christie's auction house somewhat of a rarity. The auctioneers state that this example was last working in 2005, but hasn't been turned on in the last 10 years.

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"Of those Apple-1s that survived, fewer and fewer examples remain in private hands. Fifteen extant examples are in public collections, including the Smithsonian Museum of Art, Washington D.C. and other museums of technology or science worldwide," the auction house said in a statement on its website.

The auction started Thursday with the opening bid set at $371,000. It's an online auction and will run until October 29 with interested parties able to place their bids through Christie's website. The estimated final price by Christie's is between $463,000 and $772,000.

This item also comes with an "extremely rare" first manual issued by the Apple computer company.

The Apple-1 personal computer carried a reported retail price of $666.66 in 1976. Other units have been sold at auction in recent years. In July 2013, Christie's auctioned off an early Apple-1 signed by Wozniak for $387,750.

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