A Northern California woman threw out a piece of Apple history when she gave away a roughly $200,000 vintage Apple 1 computer to a recycling facility.

Now, the Silicon Valley facility is looking for the woman because it wants to give her $100,000, or half the computer’s value.

Clean Bay Area told KNTV the anonymous woman dropped off a couple of boxes with e-waste materials a month ago at its facility in Milpitas.

Her husband recently died, so she decided to clean up their garage.


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In what she thought was a pile of junk, she delivered the boxes and left without leaving her phone number.

A few weeks later, a worker sifting through the boxes made the amazing discovery.

Inside one of the boxes laid an Apple 1, one of 200 first-generation computers created in 1976. At the time, the computer sold for $666.66.


Now the rare computer created by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs is worth much more.

The recycling company ended up selling the computer to a private collector for $200,000.

Clean Bay Area is looking to identify the woman and give her 50% of the total sale.

For breaking news in California, follow @VeronicaRochaLA.


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