Value is a very much reliant on both desirability and historical significance. I guarantee most people who own an Apple 1 never use it, and it sits in a cabinet/shelf somewhere. Transversely, I’m sure there’s very few Amiga 1200’s purely on display, with the vast majority in collectors hands either tucked in a cupboard or actively used.
The Apple 1 is collectible purely because it was the first product Apple made. There’s dozens of similar machines from the same time period, vcreated by startups looking to be the next big thing, that just didn’t make it. Look at SWTPC, look at IMSAI, the COSMAC ELF. Apple made it to the big time, and they didn’t, so many more people with too much money would consider the Apple 1 to be a wise investment. I’d still prefer the IMSAI 8080 or SWTPC 6800 though. Josh Sent from Mail for Windows From: Christian Corti via cctalk Sent: 03 August 2023 07:07 To: Murray McCullough via cctalk Cc: Christian Corti Subject: [cctalk] Re: Apple 1 On Wed, 2 Aug 2023, Murray McCullough wrote: > Classic computers have a value in our capitalist society. Take the Apple-1: Not necessarily. Something only gets a value if there is a demand or market. As I repeatedly see old classic systems scrapped because nobody wants them/has space to store them, there can't be such a high value. For example, how do you tax a Mincal 523? We have the only one that survived. I'd say, it's "priceless", you can't attribute a value to it, because there's neither a market nor a reference to compare with. The only reason why the Apple 1 has a monetary value is because it has become a pure investment object. Everything else is just worthless, except perhaps the video shift registers ;-) Christian
