A fully operational Apple computer that company co-founder Steve Jobs sold out of his parents’ garage in 1976 for $600 sold for $365,000 at Christie’s on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Ricketts Apple-1 Personal Computer, named after its original owner Charles Ricketts, is the only known surviving Apple-1 documented as having been sold directly by Jobs to an individual from the Los Altos, California family home, according to the auction house.<\/p>\n
The price fell shy of Christie’s estimate of $400,000 to $600,000 and was far less than the $905,000 paid by the Henry Ford organization in October for one of the computers. Fewer than 50 original Apple-1s are believed to be in existence of the few hundred originally produced<\/p>\n
Also at the sale, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, with the help of various foundations and private donors, bought a Bacchic figure supporting the globe by 17th-century artist Adrien de Vries for $27.9 million, well in excess of the sculpture’s pre-sale estimate of $15 million to $25 million.<\/p>\n
The Rembrandt Society, the BankGiro Loterij, VSB fund, Mondriaan Fund and others helped fund the purchase.<\/p>\n
“It follows the trend of masterpieces achieving outstanding prices,” said Jussi Pylkkanen, global president of Christie\u2019s and the auctioneer for the sale.<\/p>\n
One of the expected highlights of the auction, which Christie’s dubbed the Exceptional Sale, was withdrawn at the 11th hour when the estate of Joan Fontaine, who died aged 96 a year ago, pulled her best actress Oscar for the Alfred Hitchcock film “Suspicion” from the sale of her collection.<\/p>\n
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