The Henry Ford Museum is now the proud owner of one of the rarest Apple 1 computers, paying $905,000 in a winning bid.
Who doesn't have a thing for antiques? And something as rare as a hand-built Apple 1 computer by the company's co-founder Steve Wozniak surely gets its worth. The Henry Ford Museum found one of the rarest such machines and bought the 1976 Apple 1 computer for $905,000 that was auctioned off at the Bonham's History of Science auction.
A part of the total value goes to the auction house, which brings the actual cost of the Apple 1 down to $750,000. But the value is twice the estimated price of $300,000 to $500,000 and the highest price paid so far. The previous Apple 1 computer was sold for $672,000 last year in Germany.
The 1976 Apple 1 is not an all-in-one PC, but just a motherboard of one of the original computers. The value of the motherboard is by its rarity, being one of the first 50 Apple computers ever made and one of the only 15 to be functional after all these years, according to the Bonhams' press release.
"The provenance on the Apple-1 is excellent and the condition is outstanding, so it was not surprising that it did so well," said Cassandra Hatton, the senior specialist in charge of the auction. "We are thrilled to have broken the world record for its sale, and are even more thrilled that it is going to a wonderful new home at the Henry Ford Museum."
The Henry Ford has a gallery of more than 26 million items and the antique Apple 1 will be on display at the museum building. The 250-acre museum is a home to historical artifacts and also includes Thomas Edison's rebuilt Menlo Park laboratory and Henry Ford's rebuilt birthplace and garage.
"It has actually been on our collecting plan for many, many years," Patricia Mooradian, president of The Henry Ford, told FoxNews.com. "To have this Apple-1 is very important because our collection focuses on innovation, ingenuity, and resourcefulness, which are great American traditions."
