Just a little piece of paper, roughly 7.5 by 3 inches, is rigorously tucked away, trying like new, and graded Mint 9 by PSA/DNA. This short-term verify from Wells Fargo, dated March 16, 1976, bears the quantity “1” and represents the primary withdrawal from Apple Laptop Firm’s unique checking account. Steve Jobs signed it together with his preliminary identify in decrease case, Steven Jobs, and Steve Wozniak countersigned together with his full identify. It’s made out for $500 to Howard Cantin.
Cantin, an Atari PCB structure engineer on the time, was tasked with taking Wozniak’s bare-bones Apple-1 schematic and changing it right into a viable printed circuit board design. He utilized a method generally known as “hand tape and element placement” to route the traces and set up the parts correctly. This primarily supplied Apple with a strong platform for his or her first product, a naked board package geared toward lovers affiliated with the Homebrew Laptop Membership. On the again of the verify, Cantin has written his personal endorsement “Howard V Cantin” and obtained the financial institution’s stamp to point that the transaction went by.
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This single fee was made 16 days earlier than the precise partnership settlement was signed on April 1st, 1976, when Jobs, Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne based the corporate, with a 45-45-10 possession break up and each spending past $100 requiring approval from each. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that the corporate was already in motion, having been funded by the quick promoting of private objects, as Jobs bought his VW bus and Wozniak bought his HP-65 calculator, although he solely acquired half of the sum instantly. These revenues opened the Wells Fargo account and, extra importantly, paid for an vital piece of design work.
Later checks from the identical account included the primary official Apple deal with (770 Welch Rd, Suite 154, Palo Alto), in addition to an answering service and mail drop. In the meantime, the 2 had been nonetheless figuring out of the Jobs household storage. The Apple-1 was debuted in July 1976 at $666.66, and it bought roughly 200 models, ushering within the Private Laptop period. Cantin’s printed circuit board was the important thing to all of this, remodeling Wozniak’s hand sketched designs into one thing that could possibly be manufactured.
Collectors will let you know how unusual that is, as one other early verify (No. 2, just some days later) bought for greater than $135,000 at a earlier public sale. That is the primary one, and it’s estimated to earn greater than $500,000 in RR Auctions’ present The Apple fiftieth Anniversary Public sale, which runs till January 29, 2026 as a part of Apple’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Early bidding has already generated lots of curiosity, hitting $161,000 within the first week.
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