The 30 Minute Rule begins August 20 at 7:00 PM EDT. An Initial Bid Must Be Placed By August 20 at 6:00 PM EDT To Participate After 6:00 PM EDT
Steve Jobs's personally-owned 'Byte Shop'–style wooden Apple-1 case, measuring 15.5˝ x 17˝ x 3.5˝, with missing rear and bottom panels. The top panel features the standard keyboard cutout. This case was long kept in the attached garage of the Jobs family home in Los Altos, famously known as the 'Apple Garage.' The front panel is loose as the glue has dried, otherwise fine condition.
The Apple-1 was originally conceived by Steve Jobs and Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak as a bare circuit board to be sold as a kit and completed by electronics hobbyists, their initial market being Palo Alto’s Homebrew Computer Club. Seeking a larger audience, Jobs approached Paul Terrell, owner of The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California, one of the first personal computer stores in the world. Aiming to elevate the computer beyond the realm of the hobbyist tinkerer, Terrell offered to buy 50 of the computers—at a wholesale price of $500 a piece, to retail at $666.66—but only if they came fully assembled. Jobs and Woz agreed to the deal, setting the stage for Apple's early success.
The Byte Shop cases gave the machines a polished, finished appearance, really setting them apart from typical hobbyist kits of the era; the Apple-1 thus became one of the first ‘personal’ computers which did not require assembly by the end user. Steve Wozniak later placed Terrell's purchase order in perspective: 'That was the biggest single episode in all of the company's history. Nothing in subsequent years was so great and so unexpected.'
This wooden Apple-1 “Byte Shop” case, personally owned by Steve Jobs and preserved for years in the Jobs family garage, offers a meaningful connection to Apple’s earliest days. As an artifact associated with Apple’s first product and its formative Los Altos setting, the case reflects the transition from a hobbyist-built computer project to the beginnings of a commercial enterprise.
Provenance: from the personal collection of John Chovanec, stepbrother of Steve Jobs.
