Steve Wozniak reunited with rare Apple I motherboard in Dubai

Apple co-founder recognises its authenticity and signs it

Steve Wozniak with a rare Apple I motherboard in Dubai. Photo: The AAPL Collection

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was reunited with a piece of history of his own making in Dubai when a private collector showed him an Apple I motherboard, a rare piece of technology history that holds both significant sentimental and monetary value.

The motherboard was presented to him by Dubai-based AAPL Collection. Mr Wozniak, who along with Steve Jobs co-founded the company in 1976 that would be responsible for the smartphone revolution with the iPhone, recognised the hardware as authentic and promptly signed it.

"That’s an Apple 1. Wow! Oh my God. Just give a nice pen and I’ll sign up here,” he said.

"Wow, wow. That's too precious. Can I sign a chip?"

The Apple I, originally released as the Apple Computer, was the first product announced by the company. Hand-built by Mr Jobs, Mr Wozniak and Ron Wayne, only 200 of these machines were built and were sold for $666.66. Only a few dozen are known to exist today and a website, Apple 1 Registry, keeps track of these.

Even rarer are those that still fully function - and these command a premium price, some up to $1.5 million.

In December 2014, the Ricketts Apple-1 Personal Computer, named after its original owner Charles Ricketts, was sold for $365,000 at Christie's. It is the only known surviving Apple-1 documented as having been sold directly by Mr Jobs to an individual from his family home in Los Altos, California, according to the auction house.

In 2015, an intact Apple I dropped off by a woman at the Clean Bay Area recycling centre in California sold for $200,000. She found the computer, which belonged to her late husband, while cleaning out their garage, and was unaware of the piece of history she had disposed of. Per the centre's policies, she was entitled to 50 per cent of the profits.

Earlier this month, John Moran Auctioneers in California sold the Chaffey College Apple-1, whose original owner was a professor at Chaffey College, for $400,000.

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Rare Apple collection in Dubai