The first wooden Apple computer model released in 1976 at auction in California

A wooden Apple-1, the first computer model to be sold by Apple since 1976, was auctioned off on Tuesday, November 9 in Southern California and could go for over a million dollars.

Founded by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the company only produced 200 Apple-1s, all of which were collected by hand at Jobs, most of which sold for $ 666.66 at the time.

A copy auctioned by the John Moran auction house in Monrovia, near Los Angeles, is valued at $ 400,000 to $ 600,000, but experts say it could sell for even more. A working Apple-1 was sold in 2014 by Bonhams Home for over $ 900,000.

According to Corey Cohen, an expert interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, 60 Apple-1s have been identified to date, but only 20 of them are still working, including those sold at John Moran’s home.

The copy is very original because it features an exotic wooden box called Goa, native to the Hawaiian Islands, which has a place in sales dedicated to contemporary art and design. According to John Moran’s house list, there are only six known examples of Apple-1 with Goa homes.

In 1976, the Apple-1s were one of the first models of personal computers already assembled (especially with components already soldered on the motherboard) but they were often sold without a case or keyboard. The copy, purchased at the time by a professor at Safi College, went on sale Tuesday, “Like the Holy Grail for collectors of electronics and vintage computers”, Corey Cohen promises. This professor sold it to one of his students in 1977, who kept it to this day and chose to remain anonymous.