Related Articles
Steve Jobs’ “reality distortion field” helped propel an empire, but it couldn’t keep a leather wristwatch band from showing some serious wear. Even in “heavily worn condition,” however, the Seiko wristwatch that Jobs wore in a 1984 photo shoot with the original Macintosh still fetched $42,500 (about £29,800, AU$59,440) in an online auction Saturday.
The watch was just one of a handful of personal items consigned by Jobs’ longtime house manager Mark Sheff for the auction held by Heritage Auctions.
A pair of Jobs’ equally battered Birkenstock sandals sold for $2,750 (about £1,930, AU$3,840), one of his signature black turtlenecks with the Next logo on the front went for $7,500 (about £5,260, AU$10,485) and a lot including two of Jobs’ Next business cards, a pen with an Apple logo and a postal service return receipt signed by the late Apple CEO garnered a winning bid of $16,250 (about £11,390, AU$22,725).
The watch is perhaps best known for making an appearance on a 2011 special issue of Time magazine commemorating Jobs’ life after his death from cancer.
This lot sold for over $16,000 at auction.
Heritage Auctions
Amazingly, the auction could indicate that the market for Jobs memorabilia has cooled off a little bit from the days when original Apple 1 computers were fetching well in excess of half a million dollars and a single legal document signed by Jobs was auctioned for over $40,000.
Apparently you can put a price on distorting reality.
Apple artifacts in Christie’s online auction (pictures)
+5 more
