You will soon have a chance to own a unique slice of Apple’s early history, though it could cost you more than 1,000 new MacBook Pros.
Apple’s founding papers, which created the Apple Computer Company in 1976, could fetch as much as $4 million at a new auction. The papers are signed by Apple’s founders Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne, who received 45%, 45%, and 10% stakes respectively. If you haven’t heard of Ron Wayne, he is thought to have sold his Apple stake for $800 just twelve days after putting the papers together, and never returned to the company, followed by another $1,500 payment roughly a year later.
Had Wayne retained his entire 10% stake, it could be worth as much as $400 billion today at current market valuations, though issues like stock issuances make numbers hard to estimate. Wayne has gone on record to say that he has never regretted his decision, saying that the stress of working for Apple in its early days could have driven him to an early grave.
The auction, first spotted by South Korea’s Arirang News, is set to take place at Christie’s auction house on January 23, 2026, with an estimated valuation of between $2 million and $4 million.
Though scooping up this valuable piece of Apple history likely won’t generate as much as an early investment in Apple itself, the estimated price for the papers is still quite a bit higher than when they last went on sale in 2011. Apple’s founding papers fetched $1.6 million when they last went on sale in 2011 at auction house Sotheby’s.
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The market for historic Apple memorabilia doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and we’ve seen vintage Apple collectibles reach eye-watering prices before. A prototype Apple I, thought to possibly be the first Apple computer ever, sold for $815,000 (£618,000) in 2016. Meanwhile, much newer Apple products are already reaching classic status. A factory-sealed first-generation Apple iPhone 4GB, from 2007, sold for $190K in August 2023, priced at just $500 when it first launched.
Some less obvious Apple memorabilia has also commanded high prices; a suit worn by Steve Jobs in the iconic “1984” Macintosh commercial went up for auction in June 2024, ultimately fetching $29,000.
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