One of eight remaining functional Apple I computers goes up for auction in May

Auction Team Breker

If you think today's Macs are expensive, hold on to your butts: on May 20, Auction Team Breker will sell one of just eight known working Apple I computers in existence. Breker estimates that the computer will sell for between $190,000 and $320,000, which is in line with the sale prices of most Apple I computers in recent years—outliers include a prototype model that sold for $815,000 in August of last year and a model from early in the computer's production run that sold for $905,000 in late 2014. Given the original $666.66 sale price (about $2,800 in today's dollars), any of those prices would be a pretty solid return on your investment.

The auction listing (PDF) claims that the Apple I is "the best-preserved example of an Apple I computer to have appeared on the market" and that it's coming directly from the collection of the Berkeley, California, resident who originally bought it. The auction includes not just the computer itself, but also instruction manuals, circuit board diagrams, and notes from a phone call with Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak.

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