Technology lovers who like to collect the most valuable pieces can prepare themselves. Christie’s auction house is preparing a historic sale that will include some of the first computers in history. There will also be curious objects, such as a letter signed by Albert Einstein himself.
The name Paul Allen may sound familiar to you, at least if you like computers and computing in general. Because Allen, who died in 2018, was the co-founder of Microsoft. You may be familiar with that legendary photo in which a very young Bill Gates is seen with another boy who turned out to be, no more and no less, than Allen. But what you may not know is that the co-founder of the Windows company was a great collector. Mainly of computers, but also of other items.
An online and live auction
There is so much material in the Paul Allen collection that Christie’s has decided to carry it out in several phases and divide the items and lots. In this way, there will be items that will only be auctioned online, while others will be accessible at live events. Thanks to this, they possibly hope to get the best return from each of the collectibles that are going to be auctioned. After all, they know well that there will be some lots that will auction much better online, while others require traditional live bidding that will attract elite collectors from all over the world.
Paul Allen
@PaulGallen
So much fun catching up w/ computing pioneers at the #LCMCelebration last night! Here I am with old friend @BillGates http://t.co/a5aQaamH9H
April 4, 2013 • 03:49
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Part of the collection visible onlinewhich is related to computing, has been dubbed by the auction house as Firsts: The History of Computing. It brings together many of the computers and computing products that were on display at the Living Computers Museum until it closed in 2020. It was a revolutionary museum that allowed remote interaction with its machines in a truly curious way via Telnet. It was founded by Allen himself and was open until 2020, when it closed its doors due to the pandemic. In 2024, Allen’s family announced that the museum would not reopen and that its materials would be auctioned off.
As we mentioned, some of the computers will be auctioned online and others live. The collection includes a huge number of models that you can check out online. Among others, there is an Apple-1 that once sat on Steve Jobs’s desk. There are also more computers than you can imagine, many of them classic models that you’ve only seen in old movies. And there is no shortage of all kinds of confidential internal Microsoft items, such as letters, documents, codes and other materials that will delight collectors.
The most curious articles
Among the 150-plus items up for auction, there will be some that are extremely curious but don’t exactly fit into the technology category. Most of them are expected to fetch well into the thousands of dollars and provide tremendous value for the sale being made. Arguably, the lowest price target item is actually an original Pac-Man machine that is estimated to go for between $2,000 and $3,000. Other than that, just about everything else is expected to go for really high auction prices.
Some of these rare items include the Titanic’s menu from the day the ship hit the iceberg that caused it to sink. It was the last menu served in its restaurant and the story of how it survives to this day is probably worth hearing. There is also a letter from Albert Einstein with his signature that he sent to President Roosevelt. In it, the scientist informed him of the risk that the discovery that had been made would lead to the atomic bomb.
The curiosities also include a 1941 Enigma machine that played a crucial role in the war, letters and documents from various important people throughout different time periods, and instructions for the spacewalk taken by astronauts in 1965. The online auctions will take place between August 23 and September 12, while the physical auctions will take place in New York at the beginning of September.
