Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.
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A 1976 check to Radio Shack signed by Steve Jobs is expected to sell for more than $20,000.Jobs famously did not give autographs, and a letter from him saying so sold for nearly $500,000.Radio Shack is intertwined with Apple’s creation story, per Jobs’ biography.
A check signed by Steve Jobs to Radio Shack for $4.01 is set to fetch more than $20,000 at an auction.
Apple was founded in April 1976, about three months before this check was signed by Jobs as Steven, rather than Steve.
It states the address of the “Apple Computer Company,” which was working on its first product – the Apple I personal computer kit – around this time, according to seller RR Auction.
The auction has drawn more than 20 bids, with the highest at $22,444. It’s due to end Thursday.
Signed items from Jobs are rare because the Apple cofounder famously did not give autographs.
A letter written by Jobs, saying as much in response to a request for autograph, was sold by RR Auction for $479,939 in 2021. Another check for $175 signed by Jobs was sold by RR Auction for more than $100,000 in May.
Radio Shack, which filed for bankruptcy in 2015, is intertwined with the creation myths of many Silicon Valley companies including Apple.
Apple’s other cofounder, Steve Wozniak, used a Radio Shack computer system in 1972 to build his “Blue Box” – a device for making illegal long-distance calls.
This project marked the first collaboration between Jobs and Wozniak, with Jobs marketing it and the pair splitting the profits.
Without the “Blue Box,” Jobs later said that “there wouldn’t have been an Apple,” per his biography by Walter Isaacson.