A Swiss IT manager’s 500-piece vintage Apple collection is going up for auction

SCHARON HARDING - Ars Technica


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Over 500 Apple computers and related accessories are being auctioned off next month online and in Beverley Hills, California. The auction will feature numerous products dating from 1977 to 2008, including Macintosh systems from the '80s, more modern machines like the 2001 iMac G3, and old-school accessories like RH Electronics' Mac N' Frost external fan and surge protector.

Auction house Julien's Auctions has dabbled in Apple auctions before. Sadly, that includes the auction of Steve Jobs' Birkenstocks for a disturbing $218,750. Its upcoming auction, announced last week and spotted by sites like PetaPixel, features classic Apple items accrued by Swiss collector Hanspeter Luzi.

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The auction house's announcement describes Luzi as a late historian with many hobbies who maintained a collection of old sewing machines that are now part of Germany's Sewing Machine Museum.

Luzi reportedly became a volunteer IT manager for schools, where he'd buy off unwanted vintage computers and parts. The auction house said Luzi died in 2015, and his family decided to auction his collection of Apple products.

Julien's Auctions' announcement included a sneak peek at some of the hundreds of items it'll be putting up from the collection next month.

One of the most notable items listed is a 1983 Lisa. Not surprisingly, it has the most expensive price estimate of the bunch, at $10,000 to $20,000. Although, we wouldn't be surprised to see the vintage computer sell for more. Previous auctions have seen functioning Lisa computers go for over $50,000, including on eBay. (If the whole Lisa is too pricey, maybe the Lisa OS source code is more your budget.)

Like some of the other computers in the auction, the Lisa is being auctioned with extras. A deep-pocketed collector can walk away with the system, a keyboard, the box it came in, and a "Lisa CRT Magnets Spares Kit (652-4520)." For a detailed look at the computer, which was one of the first to leverage a mouse and GUI, check out our recent deep-dive on the Apple Lisa's short life.

For those looking to spend less, the auctioneer is also advertising a motherboard from the Lisa, as well as other Apple motherboards dating back to 1978. The boards are expected to sell for up to $200 each.

Julien's will also try to sell numerous Apple computers from the '80s, including the Apple III from 1980 with a Monitor III and "various connecting cables" included (estimated price of up to $500), plus the first Macintosh, from 1984. They're even throwing in the floppy disk apparently still in the Macintosh 128K's drive.

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Meanwhile, the 1989 Macintosh Portable will be sold with its "Apple Portable canvas case, with adapter, connecting cables, an Apple luggage tag, and two manuals in German (one copyrighted 1988, the other 1990)," Julien's Auctions said. Apple fans will remember the laptop as the first Mac to run on a (heavy) battery and one of the first personal computers to use an active matrix LCD display.

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For those who couldn't afford the machine when it sold for a short time for $6,500, you may be able to get it at a much more affordable $300 to $500, by the auction house's estimates.

Other items included in the auction are joysticks for the Apple IIe and IIC from 1983-1984 and 1994's Apple QuickTake 100 camera.

It'll be interesting to see what these products actually go for, however, as pricey Apple auctions aren't new. Most recently, an original iPhone from 2007 originally expected to auction for $50,000 ended up selling for $63,356.

Julien's Apple auction will run from March 27 to March 30.

My grandfather was a mathematician and early computer adopter. He set up one of the first (if not the first) computers in a high school in our province. When he died his basement was full of all the early Mac's all in perfect condition. They all went to the recycling yard I believe. Never in a million years would anyone in our family have guessed they'd hold any value let alone appreciate :lol: