First Apple computer fetches $374,000

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A rare surviving first model of the Apple computer — a stripped down, clunky device that bears no resemblance to today’s sleek gadgets — sold for $374,000 at auction in New York on Friday.

The price was more than double the pre-sale estimate, reflecting a two-way bidding war eventually won by an anonymous telephone bidder, Sotheby’s said.

The Apple I computer was created by Apple co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs and sold in 1976 at the birth of Jobs’s career as the world’s computer design guru.

The model auctioned in New York is believed to be one of six of the less than 50 surviving that still works.