Steve Jobs' $4.01 RadioShack check set to fetch small fortune at auction
- Reference: 1701803714
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/12/05/steve_jobs_radioshack_check/
- Source link:
The rather ornate hand-written check is [1]up for auction until Wednesday through RR Auctions, where 24 bids have been placed for the document as of writing, rare Jobs signature and all.
It's not clear what Apple was buying from RadioShack on July 23, 1976 for a mere four bucks and some change, and adjusting for inflation doesn't make it much clearer. According to the US Bureau of Labor statistics, Jobs would have been cutting a check for $21.61 were he to make the same purchase in 2023.
[2]
A check from Apple to RadioShack signed by Steve Jobs and up for auction
Regardless, the check was cut around the same time the Apple-1 went on sale at Paul Terrell's Byte Shop in Mountain View, CA, for $666.66, meaning it was probably for something important. For those unfamiliar with the saga of Apple's early days, Terrell offered to buy 50 of the machines for $500 a pop, but only if they came fully assembled. Other hobbyist computers of the era typically came as unassembled kits.
So solder, perhaps?
[3]
"That was the biggest single episode in all of the company's history. Nothing in subsequent years was so great and so unexpected," Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak later said of Terrell's order.
[4]
[5]
US electronics retailer RadioShack, now largely defunct aside from an online presence, was a fundamental part of Apple's early days if one goes back far enough.
[6]And you thought that $999 Mac stand was dear: Steve Wozniak's Apple II doodles fetch $630,272 at auction
[7]Working Apple-1 'Byte Shop' computer expected to fetch $375k+
[8]Got a spare $600k? Then an ancient Apple-1 could be yours
[9]At $1k a page, take care when RTFM: Apple-1 documentation sells for nearly $13,000 at auction
In his 2011 biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson related the story of Jobs' initial partnership with Wozniak, which began when Jobs saw a market for Woz-built "blue boxes" used by phone hackers to make free long-distance calls. Jobs sold around 200 of the devices for $150 a piece, later telling Isaacson "there wouldn't have been an Apple" if not for Woz's phreaking hardware.
As RR Auctions noted, Wozniak designed his blue box with the help of a TRS-80 Micro Computer System – TRS standing for "Tandy RadioShack" – meaning RadioShack, by extension, was just as important to the foundation of Apple as the blue box itself.
Interestingly enough, this is the second Jobs-signed check from the early days of Apple to be auctioned by RR this year – the auction house sold a [10]$175 check from Apple to managing consultant firm Cramptom, Remke & Miller in May for $106,985.
[11]
Anything signed by Jobs, who was famously averse to autographs, can go for a small fortune to the right collector. A 1983 letter from Jobs to a fan asking for an autograph, in which Jobs both declined the request for an autograph and signed the letter, was [12]sold at auction by RR in 2021 for a whopping $479,939. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/348161106800099-steve-jobs-signed-apple-computer-company-check-to-radioshack-july-23-1976/
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/12/05/jobs-radio-shack-check.jpg
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZW@rm44sRQlouh2L3tfaUgAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZW@rm44sRQlouh2L3tfaUgAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZW@rm44sRQlouh2L3tfaUgAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/21/steve_wozniak_notes_auction/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/05/working_apple1_byte_shop_computer/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2014/11/04/got_a_spare_600k_then_an_ancient_apple1_could_be_yours/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/12/apple1_manual_13k/
[10] https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/347471906650192-steve-jobs-signed-check-1976-to-early-apple-computer-consulting-firm
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZW@rm44sRQlouh2L3tfaUgAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/344176706157003-steve-jobs-typed-letter-signed
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Wozniak designed the blue box with a TRS-80? Unlikely.
Ironic considering that little over a year later (i.e. mid-1977) Radio Shack became one of Apple's early rivals when the original TRS-80 Model I launched around the same time as the Apple II. Along with the Commodore Pet, all three were effectively the first mass-market, mainstream personal computers in the form we know them today. (*)
That date also makes clear why the auctioneers' claim that " Wozniak designed his blue box with the help of a TRS-80 Micro Computer System " must be wrong, since a bit of checking confirms that Wozniak's "blue box" long-predates the design of the Apple II *and* the TRS-80. (Something I also notice others have called out that claim on.)
Wozniak may well have used other Radio Shack products to help with the blue box, but certainly not the TRS-80.
(*) Emphasis on "mass market" and "mainstream". Personal computers did exist before this- in particular the [1]HP 9800 was getting close, but still too expensive for the former. Whereas hobbyist designs like the [2]Altair 8800 in particular were important in terms of the scene which led to the Apple II et al, but in itself a device which featured toggle switches and didn't even include a keyboard or video output as standard was never going to get "mainstream" acceptance or do anything other than scare off all but the most hardcore geeks.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_9800_series
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800
Why wasn't the check cashed?
And how come it has "re-emerged" decades later as an auction item? I mean, it's not as if Radio Shack would have known that this tiny purchase was going to lead to the formation of a massively successful company in the future, so they;d be better off keeping it instead of sending it to the bank...... Did someone have a spooky premonition? Or maybe Jobs had a pal in the shop who accepted the check as payment, then "forgot" to put it through and accidentally kept it instead.....
Probably either a cable or a few baggies of electronic components..
So minus sales tax the bill was around $3.60 / $3.70. The Radio Shack catalogue for 1976 shows component baggies for $1.29 each and clips / plugs etc 2 for $1.30 etc. Exactly the sort of stuff Radio Shack was good for back then if you just wanted a few components in a hurry. Not sure if Jameco in Redwood City was around in 1976 but that was a bit of drive from Palo Alto. And that was many years before the Fry's off El Camino opened. The go to place for years in Palo Alto if you needed IC's or a bag of resistors at 11pm.
I wonder why RS kept the check. My first thought when I saw the check was - Bet it probably bounced knowing Steve Jobs. Any idea whats on the back of the check. A Wells Fargo red stamp saying Insufficient funds?
RadioShack was wonderful
Back in the days when RadioShack was everywhere it was the best place to go when you were learning to do electronics and build your own computers, you could just walk in and pick up all the bits to go home and start to learn how to build a computer ... years later it got a great and very accurate illustration of Young Sheldon buying a computer and then becoming the star in The Big Bang Theory .