A check signed by none other than Apple co-founder Steve Jobs that went up for auction in April has officially sold for a massive $US106,985.
The check went up for auction on April 17 through RR Auction, and bids officially closed on Wednesday. The check is a Wells Fargo check written for $US175 and autographed by Jobs — his name written as “steven jobs.” The check also bears the address 770 Welch Road in Palo Alto, which is a mail drop and answering service that the fledgling company used while operating out of Jobs’ garage. RR Auction estimated that the check was worth $US25,000.
“These great looking early checks are highly desired because they not only tell Apple’s founding story, they are signed with perfect examples of Steve Jobs’s autograph,” said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, in a press release emailed to Gizmodo. “Plus, bank checks allay collectors’ concerns about the authenticity of Steve Jobs’s signature.”
Jobs’ check was written from the Apple Computer Company account to Crampton, Remke & Miller, Incorporated, which was a management consulting firm in Palo Alto, California. Other clients of the consulting firm include Xerox, Atari, and Memorex. The check, therefore, is seemingly a lost vestige of Jobs and his co-founders trying to get what is now a tech monolith off the ground.
“It’s a remarkable flawless check from when Steve Jobs hired Apple’s first consulting firms — a central moment in the history of the most innovative and influential companies,” Livingston said in a previous statement emailed to Gizmodo.
This is not the only Apple memorabilia that’s gone to auction recently. Earlier this year, an unopened, first-generation iPhone went up for auction from LCG Auctions. The phone belonged to Karen Green who received the phone as a gift from her friends after starting a new job. Green’s iPhone is an 8 gigabyte first-generation iPhone with a camera that originally cost $US599 in 2007, and when the auction closed, the winning bid was a whopping $US63,356.40.