The Hatfield Apple-1 sells for $1,148,200 at Bonhams, a record for a commercially sold Apple-1
by The RetroMake desk 26 October 2026
A working Apple-1 signed by Steve Wozniak and sold with a 1978 letter from Steve Jobs to its first owner made more than twice its low estimate in New York on 14 October, weeks after RR Auction's second Apple 50th sale passed $2 million.
What we know
- The Hatfield Apple-1, No. 48 on the Apple-1 Registry, sold for $1,148,200 including buyer's premium when Bonhams' online sale closed in New York on 14 October 2026.
- Bonhams says two bidders competed for 28 minutes and calls the price a world auction record for a commercially sold Apple-1; the estimate was $500,000 to $800,000.
- The lot included a typed letter signed by Steve Jobs on 18 January 1978 offering original owner Fred Hatfield an Apple II board in exchange; he kept the machine.
- For the board's 2013 sale at Auction Team Breker in Cologne, MacRumors reported $671,400 at the time, while Bonhams' catalogue gives approximately $686,000.
- RR Auction's Apple 50th Anniversary Auction Part Two closed on 20 August 2026 with more than $2 million in sales, including $499,363 for the Neumark Apple-1 and $10,189 for an Altair 8800 Rev. 0.
A working Apple-1 whose first owner once turned down a trade-in from Steve Jobs sold for $1,148,200, including buyer's premium, when Bonhams' online History of Science, Technology & Computing sale closed in New York on 14 October 2026. Bonhams says two bidders competed for 28 minutes and that the price is a world auction record for a commercially sold Apple-1. The pre-sale estimate was $500,000 to $800,000. Bonhams did not name the buyer.
The qualifier matters. Prototypes have made more: RR Auction sold the "Celebration" board, which it describes as the earliest known fiberglass Apple-1 prototype, for $2,750,000 in a sale that ended on 29 January 2026.
The machine and the letter
The Hatfield machine is No. 48 on the Apple-1 Registry. Bonhams' catalogue describes a board stamped "NTI" underneath, which it identifies as the second batch, with a white ceramic MOS Technology 6502, 8 KB of RAM, three original Sprague "Big Blue" capacitors and the original Apple cassette interface. Wozniak's "Woz" signature runs along the top edge. Citing the registry, Bonhams says 74 verified Apple-1s are known of the 200 built, and fewer still work.
What sets this one apart is paperwork. The lot included a typed letter signed "Steven Jobs" as Vice President, Operations, and dated 18 January 1978. It authorised Fred Hatfield, a Computer Data Systems employee who had complained to Apple about the lack of software, to exchange his Apple-1 for an Apple II 4k board. MacRumors reports that the trade would also have cost him $400. He kept the machine, and Bonhams says it is the only Apple-1 known to come with signed correspondence from Jobs.
Two prices for 2013
The board's later history is less tidy. MacRumors' report of its last sale, updated at the time with details from The New York Times, said that Hatfield, a New Orleans resident, had sold it privately in non-working condition for $40,000 earlier in 2013, and that the buyer had it repaired and flew to California to have Wozniak sign it. It then sold at Auction Team Breker in Cologne on 25 May 2013, as lot 14.
MacRumors gave that price as $671,400. Bonhams' catalogue says "approximately $686,000". Neither explains the difference.
RR Auction in August
The Bonhams result follows RR Auction's "Steve Jobs & the Computer Revolution: The Apple 50th Anniversary Auction Part Two", which ran from 24 July to 20 August 2026 and, RR says, realized more than $2 million. The highest price among the results RR published was $499,363 for the "Neumark" Apple-1, housed in a Smith-Corona typewriter case. A Jobs-signed Apple business card from about 1983 made $156,658; a Lisa with "Twiggy" drives, ProFile hard disk, manuals and printer, $89,356; and the Erik Klein collection of 47 microcomputers, terminals and peripherals from 1969 to 1999, $80,514. For comparison, a Twiggy-drive Lisa 1 in the Bonhams sale went for $59,580.
Further down RR's catalogue, lot 4180 was a MITS Altair 8800 Rev. 0, serial 222146K, the K marking a machine first sold as a kit. It came with Rev. 0 1K and 4K static memory boards, Tarbell cassette and floppy interfaces, dual 8-inch drives, a paper-tape reader, Altair BASIC on cassette and an archive of manuals and printouts. RR described it as untested. Against an estimate of $8,000 or more, it sold for $10,189 with premium.