Woman Unknowingly Trashed $200,000 Apple I

A Bay Area recycling company made the find of a century. A mystery woman trashed a box of electronics. Inside a rare Apple I.

An Apple I does not look much like a computer. If you don’t know it you would not recognize that this certain circuit board could to be worth up to $900,000. A mystery woman has made a huge mistake, but might still cash in if she comes forward. The San Jose Mercury News reports that a San Francisco Bay Area recycling firm is looking for a woman who dropped a box of electronics in April to give her a check for $100,000.

Why? The box she trashed contained a rare Apple I. There are only 200 units of the hand-made by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne, Apple I PCs and pristine units can fetch up to $900,000.

The recycling firm was smart enough to recognize what has been in the box and sold the Apple I to a private collector for $200,000. It is company policy of Clean Bay Area to split proceeds 50-50 with the donor. The company is looking now for the mystery woman who refused to get a receipt or leave her name.

Vice President Victor Gichun: “She said, ‘I want to get rid of this stuff and clean up my garage,’ ” Gichun said. “I said, ‘Do you need a tax receipt?’ and she said, ‘No, I don’t need anything.’ ” The woman has disclosed that the stuff is from her husband who had died a couple of months earlier.

Mr. Gichun says that he will recognize the woman on sight. This is like someone buying a lottery ticket and not knowing that they had won.