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Apple founding contract sells for $1.6m at Sotheby’s

by Steven Williamson on 14 December 2011, 12:28

Tags: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

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An Apple contract signed by founders Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976 has sold today at auction house Sotheby’s for $1.35 million

The three-page document, which was expected to sell for $100,000 to $150,000, was bought by Eduardo Cisneros, chief executive officer of Miami-based Cisneros Corp, who won the papers against five other bidders.

The document sold for $1.35m, but Cisneros also has to pay Sotherby’s a premium of 12 percent. bumping the final total up to nearly $1.6million.


The action unfolds in Sotherby's auction house in New York City

The contract details the original partnership for the Apple Computer Company revealing that Ronald Wayne received a 10 percent stake in the company with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak each taking a 45 percent share.

Wayne then decided he didn’t want to be involved and backed out of the contract, which would now have been worth $2 billion. He was paid a total of just $2,300 for his part in founding the company which has now gone on to establish itself as a market leader in the field of consumer electronics, software application and PCs with products such as Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad selling in their millions across the globe.

Apple founder Steve Jobs died from pancreatic cancer on October 5, 2011 at the age of just 56.

Steve Wozniak joined Fusion-io, a data storage and server company, in Salt Lake City, Utah as their chief scientist in 2009, and is now on the management team.

Ronald Wayne was said to have created the first Apple logo and write the manual for Apple I. He is now retired, selling stamps and rare coins from his home in Nevada. We guess he doesn't need the reminder, but today he must be kicking himself yet again for giving up that 10 percent share in one of the world's biggest companies.


HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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Feel a bit sorry for that Ronald Wayne guy. Looked at his wikipedia page as well … sounds like a nice guy.
Who has that kind of money to blow on a piece of paper?

Most of us will never see that kind of cash in our entire lives. *Grumble*
Any chance this dude will just hang onto the papers so he can patent troll any future ‘iContract’…?

:p
Apple even bits of paper are over priced.