Apple Founding Documents Sell For £1m

A contract that is the first document to bear the name of Apple Computer Co. has sold at auction for $1.59m (£1m) in New York.

The set of papers, including a three-page document establishing Apple, was sold by Sotheby’s on Wednesday to Eduardo Cisneros, chief executive of Cisneros Corp., according to Sotheby’s. The estimated sale price had been between $100,000 (£64,000) and $150,000 (£97,000), the auction house said.

Apple’s founding fathers

The documents were originally owned by Ronald Wayne, one of Apple’s three co-founders, who remained a partner for only a few days.

Wayne signed he contract  on 1 April, 1976 with Apple’s two other co-founders, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Wayne sold the documents to Wade Saadi, a US businesman, in 1994 for “a few thousand dollars” at a point in time when Saadi said he was “infatuated” with Jobs’ achievements, said The Telegraph.

Wayne, who worked at Atari at the time, was asked by Jobs to convince Wozniak to join Apple.

He started off with a 10 percent share in the company, but pulled out a few days later, selling his share for $800 (£516), plus a later payment of $1,500 (£967). The share would now be worth several billion dollars.

Wayne is credited with drawing Apple’s first logo and writing the manual for the Apple I computer. He is now retired and sells stamps and rare coins from his Nevada home, according to a 2010 report by the San Jose Mercury News.