First Apple Computer Sells for Astounding $374,500

With two biopics about him the works, Steve Jobs remains a hot commodity in Hollywood. And apparently he can still work magic on the auction block, as well.

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Two Jobs-related items sold for hefty prices at auction Friday, including the rare Apple 1 computer, the BBC reports.

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The computer, the first Apple ever produced, sold for $374,500, more than twice what Sotheby’s high estimates predicted. Only 200 Apple 1s were created (each handmade by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak) and around 50 are believed to remain. The model sold at auction is even more rare, because it is just one of a handful that is still functioning.

Though one might assume the computers were a Jobs creation, Wozniak wrote in his 2006 book iWoz that Jobs was hands off on the early computers, which debuted in 1976.

"There are stories that Steve (Jobs) and I engineered those first computers together,'' he wrote. ''I did them alone.''

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A note Jobs wrote when he was a 19-year-old Atari employee also brought in some serious cash at auction Friday. Written in 1974, the handwritten memo includes diagrams showing Jobs’ ideas about how to improve the company’s paddle-based game World Cup. The memo also lists Jobs Los Altos address and a Buddhist mantra which translates as “Going, going, going on beyond, always going on beyond, always becoming Buddha."

Other memorabilia from Jobs, who died in October, has drawn serious cash in previous auctions. Apple's founding papers brought nearly $1.6 million in December. 

Sotheby’s said two parties battled it out for the prized Apple 1 computer, but did not disclose their identities.  Whomever those Apple fanatics are, they may be pleased that Jobs' legacy will be further explored in two upcoming films.

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Oscar-winning scribe Aaron Sorkin is currently writing a Jobs screenplay for Sony based upon Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography. In a different film, Jobs, Ashton Kutcher is attached to play the Apple cofounder.