Apple co-founders Woz and Wayne reminisce about early company relics

“Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak yesterday said he wasn’t surprised at the growing interest in early artifacts from the company, including the Apple-1, the first personal computer he designed and created,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld. “‘It doesn’t seem that unusual at all,’ Wozniak said in a telephone interview Monday. ‘It’s the largest brand in the world, so many people know Apple, and the Apple-1 is so rare. But it’s also because the world’s changed since Apple was started.'”

“But Ron Wayne, a co-founder much less known than either Wozniak or Steve Jobs, thought a little differently,” Keizer reports. “‘I’m just amazed, to be perfectly candid,’ he said of the interest. ‘I just played a small part [in Apple]. It’s all about Steve Wozniak creating this product.'”

“Wayne, now 80, and Wozniak, 64, were referring to the brisk sales of Apple memorabilia over the last several years, including several Apple-1 machines that have sold at auction for more than half a million dollars each, and in 2011, the company’s founding contract, which sold for $1.6 million,” Keizer reports. “Among the items slated for auction by Christie’s on Dec. 11 is Wayne’s document collection, dubbed the ‘Ron Wayne Apple Archive.'” It includes original working proofs of the Apple-1 manual, Wayne’s original company logo — perhaps the oldest in existence — and design renderings of a proposed Apple II case. Christie’s has pegged the value of Wayne’s collection at $30,000 to $50,000, the high estimate an increase from an earlier $40,000. Wayne’s Apple II planned enclosure was not actually used, but it closely resembled the final in several ways. ‘The [actual case] philosophy was as I designed it,’ said Wayne.”

Much more in the full article here.