In a cautionary tale that will validate the hoarding habits of technology obsessives everywhere, a woman in the US has dumped a super-rare first-generation Apple computer worth US$200,000 at a recycling depot in Milpitas, California.
The firm — CleanBayArea — said the woman dropped off boxes of old gadgets and “e-waste” one month ago, but didn’t leave any contact information.
“She said that her husband had passed away and that she had decided to clean up their garage,” the company said in a statement.
After searching through the boxes a few weeks later, a recycling manager found the collector’s item and arranged for a sale.
Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak famously created the Apple 1 — the firm’s first desktop computer — in Jobs’ family garage in 1976.
About 200 Apple 1s were built, and roughly 50 are believed to still exist — most of them not in working order.
