Tasty €600,000 estimate for a slice of Apple history

It's the ultimate gift for tech fans. The only known surviving Apple-1 computer "documented as sold by Steve Jobs" from his parents' garage in California is to be auctioned in New York next month. It may not be an antique but, in technology terms, it's an ancient artefact. Fine Art & Antiques auctioneers Christie's said the lot has been assigned a top estimate of $600,000 ahead of the sale in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center on December 11th.

Christie’s said the “American cultural icon” had been discovered in a “storage locker auction in Virginia”.

The computer was originally bought for $600 directly from Steve Jobs by Charles Ricketts who also bought "Software NA Programmed by Steve Jobs" for an extra $193 in 1976.

Christie's said Ricketts had sold the computer after 23 years to "Bruce Waldack, a freshly minted entrepreneur who'd just sold his company DigitalNation". It was subsequently "auctioned at a sheriff's sale of Waldack's property at a self-storage facility in Virginia in 2004" and acquired by the current owner, the American collector Bob Luther who has now consigned it to auction.

In addition to the computer, the winning bidder in the auction will also receive will also receive the original cheques used by Mr Ricketts to buy the computer and the software .

The bidder may have to pay far higher than the estimated price. In all, 50 Apple-1 computers were made in 1976 and last month in New York, at a Bonhams auction, one sold for $905,000 – double the estimate.