Apple I Computer Sells for $200,000; Donor Sought

It turns out that one person’s junk is indeed someone else’s treasure.

A South Bay recycling firm is looking for a woman who, in early April, dropped off boxes of electronics that she had cleaned out from her house after her husband died. About two weeks later, the firm, Clean Bay Area, discovered inside one of the boxes a rare find: a vintage Apple I, one of only about 200 first-generation desktop computers put together by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne in 1976.

The recycling firm sold the Apple I for $200,000 to a private collection, Vice President Victor Gichun said. And now, because company policy is to split proceeds 50-50 with donors, he’s looking for the mystery woman who refused to get a receipt or leave her name.

“We are looking for her to give her $100,000,” Gichun said.

She had stopped by on a Friday just before closing time.

“She said, ‘I want to get rid of this stuff and clean up my garage,’ ” Gichun said. “I said, ‘Do you need a tax receipt?’ and she said, ‘No, I don’t need anything.’ ”

The company had a backlog of donations, and didn’t immediately go through her boxes. He feels badly because the woman said her husband had died a couple of months earlier. Gichun’s own mother died at age 54, and he remembers how his father suffered afterward.

Maybe, Gichun said, having some extra cash will help the woman.

Clean Bay Area recycles computers, lab equipment, test equipment and semiconductors. It deals mostly with businesses, but individuals stop by with donations about five times a week. The company doesn’t pick up from individual donors.

“I remember her,” Gichun said.

He said she was driving an SUV. He’s not divulging any other descriptive information about the woman or her car. In the future, he said, he’ll be more insistent about getting donors’ contact information.

To get her $100,000 check, the mystery woman just needs to show up at the company’s warehouse in Milpitas.

“To prove who she is,” Gichun said, “I just need to look at her.”

This article appeared in print in the June 2nd, 2015 edition of Hamodia.