$500 check signed by Steve Jobs sells for $2.4 million at auction

By Dean Murray

A $500 check signed by Steve Jobs has sold for $2,409,886.

The item is the earliest known check drawn from Apple’s original bank account and was sold at auction in Boston on Thursday, Jan. 29.

Other highlights of the RR Auction sale included a pre-production Apple-1 prototype computer, which sold for $2,750,000, and a collection of Jobs’ personally owned bow ties, which went for $113,580.

In total, the Steve Jobs & the Computer Revolution: The Apple 50th Anniversary Auction realized $8,153,074.

Dated March 16, 1976, the Wells Fargo check, marked “No. 1,” was written to printed circuit board designer Howard Cantin and signed by Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

The payment predates Apple’s formal incorporation by more than two weeks and documents one of the company’s earliest recorded business transactions.

"This is the most important financial document in Apple history," said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction. "It captures Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak’s first true business transaction, and the final result shows that collectors recognized its significance above any other Apple material ever brought to market."

Additional highlights from the sale included:

• Pre-production Apple-1 prototype computer (“Celebration” board), sold for $2,750,000
• March 1976 Wells Fargo bank statement for Apple Computer Co., sold for $828,569
• Steve Jobs’s personally owned a 1977 Apple Computer Inc. poster sold for $659,900
• Steve Jobs’s personally owned Apple-1 Byte Shop wooden case, sold for $254,375
• Steve Jobs’s personally owned bow ties sold for $113,580
• Steve Jobs’s Apple Computer business card with handwritten note to his father, sold for $97,439
• Steve Jobs’s bedroom desk from the Apple garage property sold for $81,989