Comment by kens
19 hours ago
That literally happened: a woman dropped off computer junk at an e-waste facility in Milpitas in 2015. The facility found an Apple I in the stuff and sold it for $200,000. They tried unsuccessfully to get in touch with the woman to split the money.
The Apple 1 registry site says that it was likely a marketing stunt by the e-waste facility (https://www.apple1registry.com/en/theapple1.html):
> The story of an almost-destroyed Apple-1 found in a recycling center is a bit strange. There’s no proof it's true. No picture of the Apple-1 has been published, yet the company was in the news for a long time. After gaining so much attention, many people sent old computers to them. Numerous requests for a photo or info went unanswered. No Apple-1 expert or collector was ever contacted by the recycling company.
As far as I can tell, there's no public record of the sale, the buyer never came forward, and all the photos of the computer from news articles and stuff are stock images of other Apple 1s.