Antiques Roadshow expert shares valuation of 'most wanted' medal
WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Antiques Roadshow.
An Antiques Roadshow guest was taken aback with the real value of a computer mock-up manual beyond her “wildest” expectations.
Filming at the Filoli Historic House and Garden in California, a guest was excited to present the mock-up manual for the Apple 1 computer to expert Travis Landry to appraise.
Explaining how she got her hands on the pamphlet, the guest said on the PBS series: “I brought an original Apple 1 computer manual.
One day I was at work, and I worked at Apple, and the facilities crew was cleaning out some closets and they had a great big old dumpster so I got in dumpster diving.
“I hate to say it but it’s true!”, to which Travis enthusiastically replied: “That is awesome!”
Read more: Antiques Roadshow yells 'Holy Moses' at rare TV puppet's value in the thousands
When asked how long she had worked at Apple for, the guest replied 33 years, adding: “[It] went in the blink of an eye, every day was different.
“You never knew who you were going to see, it was just an incredibly fantastic, enlightening time.”
Travis went on to comment: “There is no way to express how important the Apple 1 computer is.
“The first big debut was in 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto.
“It carried a retail cost of $666.66 which, originally you’d be like ‘Wow, 666. That might not be the greatest number to market.’
“But the reason why is Steve Wozniak loved the soothing feeling of hearing repeated numbers so they came up with $666.66 which is equivalent to a little bit over $3,000 in today’s market, if you account for inflation.
“So this is a huge chunk of change back in the 1970s.”
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He also gave the guest an interesting fact in that the original Apple logo, with Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree, was designed by the third co-founder Ronald Wayne.
However, shortly after founding Apple with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, he ended up selling his shares for $800 (£633).
There were also a number of scribbles on the manual, indicating changes that needed to be made ahead of the Apple 2 coming out in 1977.
Travis continued: “So this is like, in my crazy mind of thinking, about - I mean there’s no way to guarantee it, but whose hands were making those changes to say ‘We’ve got to change this logo, we’ve got to change this wording.’
“Even when you go to the back of the book, it’s so cool seeing the mark-up ‘Replace with new art’.
“Who wrote that? Was it Steve Jobs? Was it Woz?”
Summarising, he said: “But the other thing is the historical significance of this is a mock-up copy.
“So when it comes to putting a value on it, conservatively, at auction today, the pamphlet would be estimated between $10,000 (£7,918) and $15,000 (£11,887).”
Clearly surprised, the guest began to laugh: “That is more than surprising and more than I ever would have thought.
“I mean, even if you told me $10, it would have been OK!
“I mean, seriously. That is beyond my wildest expectation.”
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on PBS.
