If you’re looking to bid on an important Apple prototype and a piece of computing history, you’re going to like this.
A rare prototype of the original Apple Macintosh, complete with a 5.25-inch disk drive instead of the 3.5-inch disk drive the computer shipped with is headed to auction again as part of Bonhams’ upcoming History of Science and Technology collection.
The prototype, nicknamed the “Twiggy Macintosh” given that it features the same 5.25-inch double-sided floppy disk drive created for the Apple Lisa, was codenamed “Twiggy” during its development. The internal drives were infamously unreliable at the time, and given that the Macintosh shipped without any internal storage, the disk drive became a critical component that could be relied upon.
In addition to the rarity of the machine, the underside features the model number “#M0001” and helps boost the appeal to potential collectors.
This specific Twiggy Macintosh originally came from the developers of the word processor MacWrite and was one of two prototypes restored to working order in 2014. Less than five are known to exist, but what makes this prototype especially collectible is that it features model number #M0001 on the underside, making it one of the earliest.
The prototype originally sold through a Bonhams auction in 2019 for $150,075, setting a record for Macintosh computers at the time. The Bonhams auction house estimates that the #M0001 Twiggy Macintosh could sell for between $80,000 and $120,000, or possibly even more, this time around. Earlier this year, Christie’s sold an Apple Lisa 1 for $882,000.
The Bonhams auction has gone live and is set to close on October 23 at 12:00 EDT.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.