'Mysterious Woman' Throws Out Vintage Apple Computer Worth $200,000
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}One man's trash is another man's treasure. Or in this case, one woman's trash is actually a rare, vintage Apple-1 computer, one of only 200 originals built by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne that recently fetched $200,000 in an online auction.
NBC Bay Area is reporting that an older woman, between the age of 60 and 70, dropped off the computer, buried in a box of discarded electronics, at CleanBayArea's recycling center in Milpitas, Calif., about a month ago.
Related: 5 Awesomely Entrepreneurial Artifacts That Will Soon Live at the Smithsonian
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Later discovered by a recycling manager sorting through the boxes, the Apple-1 computer – which was built in 1976 and was originally priced at $666.66 – was put up for auction, and sold for $200,000 (a considerable sum, but also considerably less than the $905,000 another Apple-1 computer recently fetched at a New York auction).
The recycling company is now searching for the woman so it can give her $100,000, or half the proceeds from the sale.
"We couldn't believe our eyes, we thought it was fake. It was real," Victor Gichun, CleanBayArea's vice president told NBC Bay Area.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Only in Silicon Valley.
Related: Vintage Apple 1 Computer Auctioned Off for Record-Setting $905,000