Pre-Apple Check Issued By Steve Jobs & Wozniak To Fetch More Than 400X Its Value

Video screenshot RR Auction

These days, US$116.97 can get you a MagSafe battery pack, and then some, at Apple. In the 1970s, though, this amount was probably enough to change the course of the company’s history.

An Apple Computer “No. 2” check signed by co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak is set to go under the hammer by way of Boston-based RR Auction.

The unassuming artifact, dating back to March 19, 1976, was issued to Ramlor, Inc., marking one of Apple’s earliest payments and evidence of how its history was re-written (no pun intended). The slip served as a temporary check for the company, which had just opened a bank account.

Image courtesy of RR Auction

Notably, the check was written 13 days before the official founding of Apple Computer, Inc., which launched on April 1. 

With a little over three weeks to go before bids close, the piece is already fetching more than its estimated price of over US$50,000, with US$55,527 being the highest offer as of the time of writing.

Experts believe that this small payment to Ramlor, Inc., a printed circuit board manufacturer, was connected to the first Apple-1 Computers. The significance of this check lies in its historical value, being one of the first documents ever signed by Jobs and Wozniak, and the company’s second company.

Apple’s first taste of success came after Paul Terrell, the owner of pioneering personal computer store The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California, placed an order for 50 fully assembled computers—when the would-be trillion-dollar company was still making printed circuit board (PCB) kits for hobbyists. This bulk purchase for ready-made hardware nudged the firm into the direction of the mainstream.

Image courtesy of RR Auction

Image courtesy of RR Auction

The historic piece of paper is an “extraordinary, museum-quality piece of tech history,” the auctioneer expresses in a press release. It joins other Apple relics in its Apple, Jobs, and Computer Hardware sale, which will include a first-generation, factory-sealed Apple iPhone kept by an employee, a fully operational Apple-1 computer signed by Wozniak, and a letter by Jobs to a student starting in electronics.

Image courtesy of RR Auction

“A lot of us didn’t get started on electronics until we were much older than you are now, so you’re off to quite a good start,” Jobs wrote in an encouraging typed letter to student Scott Rossignol in November 1983.

Bobby Livingston, Executive VP at RR Auction, notes the significance of this temporary Apple check as a key milestone in the company’s history.

“This temporary Apple check is one of the first documents ever signed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, predating the famous Apple agreement with Ron Wayne,” reiterates Livingston. “The second Apple check ever written paid for the initial batch of Apple 1 circuit boards—the financial transaction that started the revolution.”

[via RR Auction, images courtesy]

This article was crafted with assistance from an AI engine, and has been reviewed, edited, and fact-checked.