Steve Jobs’ Early Apple Items Are Going Up for Auction—Along With His Bow Ties

Courtesy of RR Auction

Coincidentally, this original partnership agreement between Jobs, Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, signed on April 1, 1976, is also up for sale this month at Christie’s. (Wayne got cold feet shortly after signing and sold his 10 percent stake to the Steves for $800.) It is among the “works of art, furniture and documents that changed American history” offered in a sale titled “We the People: America at 250.” Christie’s estimates the partnership document will sell for between $2 million and $4 million.

Articles related to Apple’s early history, particularly those involving Jobs, have fetched stratospheric prices in recent years. Jobs was notoriously reluctant to sign items, and his signature is considered one of the most valuable of any public figure. Even a signed business card can cost up to six figures. “There is an emotional connection between Steve Jobs and collectors,” says Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of RR. “People who are starting their own Internet or engineering businesses love Apple products.” Lonnie Mimms, owner of Check #2 and founder of a technology museum in Roswell, Georgia, raves about the value of these pieces of paper. “You can get anything in the world with Steve Wozniak’s signature, but Jobs is another story. And the two together constitute the highest form of scarcity.”

The articles published by Chovanec are in another field. Some of them seem to belong less to history than to the domain of religious relics. After Paul Jobs’ death, Steve promised that Chovanec’s mother could live in the house “until you give up.” Chovanec says Jobs, notoriously unsentimental, was not interested in anything in his old home except a few family photos. As for the desk and its contents, he says Jobs told him to take it. Chovanec’s mother, Marilyn, remained in the house until her death in 2019. For years, the desk and other items were stored in Chovanec’s garage. He actually worked for Apple starting in 2005, only revealing it to Jobs after he was hired. During his 16 years with the company, first in the supply chain section and then in the retail group, few people knew he was Jobs’ half-brother. “I felt like it was no one’s business,” he says. When Chovanec attended Jobs’ memorial service at Stanford in 2011, he said, “Some executives looked at me with a look like, ‘What is this?’ You what are you doing here?’