Steve Jobs signed $201.41 Apple check to bring in considerably more at auction
Steve Jobs Signed ‘Apple Computer Company’ Check to Pacific Telephone (July 8, 1976)
A desirable Jobs-signed check paying Apple’s telephone bill – for a whole $201.41 – made out to Pacific Telephone is up for auction.
RR Auction:
Headed “Apple Computer Company,” the check uses Apple’s first official address at “770 Welch Rd., Ste. 154, Palo Alto” — the location of an answering service and mail drop that they used while still operating out of the famous Jobs family garage. In very fine condition. Encapsulated and graded by PSA/DNA as “GEM MT 10.” A desirable Jobs-signed check paying Apple Computer’s telephone bill some 31 years before the release of the first iPhone on June 29, 2007.
During this period in the summer of 1976, roughly four months after founding the Apple Computer Company, Jobs and Wozniak were hard at work building their first product. Though initially conceived as a kit to be soldered together by the end user — like most enthusiast computers of the era — the Apple-1 became a finished product at the behest of Paul Terrell, owner of The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California, one of the first personal computer stores in the world. Terrell offered to buy 50 of the computers — at a wholesale price of $500 a piece, to retail at $666.66 — but only if they came fully assembled. With this request, Terrell aimed to elevate the computer from the domain of the hobbyist/enthusiast to the realm of the mainstream consumer. Wozniak later placed Terrell’s purchase order in perspective: “That was the biggest single episode in all of the company’s history. Nothing in subsequent years was so great and so unexpected.”
Thus, the Apple-1 was one of the first completely assembled ‘personal’ computers that simply worked out of the box with a few accessories that could be purchased from a local electronics store (a power supply, case, keyboard, and monitor were not included). All together, over a span of 10 months or so, Jobs and Wozniak produced about 200 Apple-1 computers and sold 175 of them. A superb check signed by the innovative personal computing pioneer.
MacDailyNews Take: Adjusted for inflation, that’s a $1,108 phone bill in today’s dollars.
Jobs: “Woz, you’ll never guess how much the phone bill was this month!”
Woz: “You should be using the blue box!”
Would that Steve were still (overseeing someone) signing Apple’s checks today!
Interns, Tap That Keg! Prost, everyone!
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