The most valuable document in American business history sold Friday for $2.51 million at Christie's.
A three-page agreement between Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, the contract was signed April 1, 1976, and set out the original terms for The Apple Computer Company.
Jobs and Wozniak, then 21 and 26 years old, respectively, each received 45% of the company, while Wayne, 41, an engineer and draftsman at Atari, was awarded a 10% share.
Wayne was brought in to write the actual document, the early manual and, most importantly, to break ties in voting. Jobs very much wanted people to buy Apple and Apple products only. Wozniak was an early computer type who was willing to allow open source software to work with Apple's hardware.
Wayne famously left the company after 12 days because he was worried, understandably, that Jobs and Wozniak would run out of money and the onus would fall on him, the only one of the three who had his own bank account.
Apple went on to get an investment nine months later and reformed as Apple Computer Inc. An IPO a little less than three years later, made Jobs worth $256 million and Wozniak worth $116 million.
For his part, Wayne didn't find much business after Apple. Many years ago, Wayne saw a magazine ad from a company that sold autographs. He asked if they wanted to buy Apple's first document. They did, and Wayne received $500.
In 2011, Sotheby's estimated the document was worth $100,000 to $150,000
It sold for $1.4 million to Eduardo Cisneros of the holding company Grupo Cisneros out of Venezuela.
Entering this auction 15 years later, Christie's estimated the document was worth $2 million to $4 million.
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Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.