David Paul Morris/Getty Images
- A $175 check signed by Steve Jobs in 1976 just fetched more than $100,000 at auction.
- Expected to sell for $25,000, the final bid was $85,588; with a buyer's premium, the sale price was $106,985.
- In February, a first-gen iPhone sold for more than $63,000.
A $175 check signed by Steve Jobs recently hit the auction block, where it was expected to fetch $25,000. Let's just say it did a lot better than that.
The highest bid for the check topped out at $85,588. Including a 25% buyer's premium, the final sale price for the check came out to a whopping $106,985. The auction began on April 17 and ended Wednesday.
The auction house, RR Auction, initially expected the check to fetch $25,000 or more, more than 142 times the check's original value. Its final sale price is more than 611 times the original value of the check.
"It's a remarkable flawless check from when Steve Jobs hired Apple's first consulting firms — a central moment in the history of the most innovative and influential companies," said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, in a press release.
"These great looking early checks are highly desired because they not only tell Apple's founding story, they are signed with perfect examples of Steve Jobs's autograph," he added.
The check dates back to 1976, the year the company was founded. It was made out to Crampton, Remke and Miller, a now-defunct Palo Alto management consulting firm whose clients included Atari, Xerox, and other tech companies, according to the auction listing, which says the check is in "pristine" condition.
Jobs, the late cofounder of Apple, famously disliked giving autographs, so items he signed are rare.
Listed on the check is Apple's first official address, which was an answering and mail drop service that its founders used while building the company out of Jobs' family garage, according to the auction house.
Early Apple relics have fared well at recent auctions. In October, an unopened first-generation iPhone still in its original box went for over $39,000 at auction, more than 65 times the $599 the phone cost when it first came out in 2007. In February, another factory-sealed original iPhone sold for over $63,000 at auction, more than 100 times its original price.