The mysterious woman who left a rare Apple 1 computer worth $200k for recycling
It is one of the ironies of life that when lady luck smiles at you, you happen to be looking the other way. This is what happened with a mysterious women in Clean Bay area from California.
A recycling center in the Silicon Valley has been looking for a woman who has dropped off an old Apple computer that has turned out to be a jackpot, a collectible item worth $US200,000 ($A261,470).
The computer was inside a box of electronics items that she had cleaned out from her garage after her husband passed away, said Victor Gichun, the vice president of Clean Bay Area.
She did not want a tax receipt or leave her any contact information, and it wasn’t until a few weeks later that the workers opened the boxes to discover a jackpot an Apple I computer inside it.
The San Jose Mercury News reports it was one of only about 200 first-generation desktop computers assembled personally by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne in the year 1976.
“We really couldn’t believe our eyes. We thought it was an illusion,” Gichun told KNTV-TV.
The recycling firm sold the Apple I for $200,000 to a private collection, and because the company gives 50 percent of items sold back to the original owner, Gichun said he wants to split the proceeds with the mysterious donor.
He said he remembers how she looks like and is asking her to come back to claim her jackpot money worth $US100,000 check.
“To prove her identity,” Gichun said, “I just need to look at her.”
