Apple 1 Computer Sold For Record-Breaking $671,400

One of the only six working Apple 1 computers sold for a whopping $671,400, which breaks the previous record of $640,000, at the Breker auction house in Germany, Saturday.

An Apple-1 personal computer, 37-years old hand-made by Stephen G. Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, was sold for $671,400 at the Breker auction house in Germany. The previous record of pricy Apple-1 computer was sold at the same auction house in Cologne, Germany, for $640,000, last November. Another Apple-1 computer was sold for $374,500 at Sotheby's in New York, June last year. The latest sale of the Apple-1 computer exceeded the estimated price which was $260,000 to $400,000. The bid was started at $116,000, according to the New York Times.

Although the current iMacs and Apple computers are far more advanced than the first of Apple computers, the high price is mostly explained by the fascinating history and the scarcity of the machines.

"It is a superb symbol of the American dream," Uwe Breker, the German auctioneer, said. "You have two college dropouts from California who pursued an idea and a dream, and that dream becomes one of the most admired, successful and valuable companies in the world." Like Breker said, it is not what the machines are capable of doing, but what they represent fetches such valuable prices. The buyer of the $671,400-Apple-1 computer wished to remain anonymous.

Based on earlier reports, the old machine, was owned by Fred Hatfield and hand-made by Stephen G. Wozniak, gives the additional value to the Apple-1 computer. Wozniak built only 200 of these computers in 1976, when he first started the company with Steve Jobs, in Jobs family garage. But only six of these working computers remain in existence. Each machine were originally priced at $666.66 (around $2,700 in current dollars), which has now fetched more than 200 times the value in current dollars.