Original Apple Founding Document to Headline Christie's Auction in January 2026

Christie's auction house in New York has officially announced the forthcoming sale of a pivotal historical artifact: the original three-page partnership agreement that established the Apple Computer Company back in 1976. The high-profile auction is slated for January 23, 2026. This document is particularly significant as it bears the signatures of all three co-founders: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne.

The agreement meticulously outlined the initial ownership structure of the nascent company. Jobs and Wozniak were each allocated a 45 percent stake, while Wayne received the remaining 10 percent. The lot up for bidding at Christie's encompasses not only this foundational contract but also supplementary paperwork detailing Ronald Wayne’s swift departure from the founding team, which occurred just twelve days after the initial signing. Wayne, who also designed Apple’s very first logo, received an initial payment of 800 dollars for his share, followed by an additional 1,500 dollars. He chose to relinquish his role due to considerable apprehension regarding the startup’s potential financial liabilities, specifically his unwillingness to assume personal responsibility for any outstanding loans.

Experts at Christie's anticipate that this rare document could command a sale price somewhere between 2 million and 4 million dollars. For context, a similar collection of documents, which included both the founding agreement and Wayne's separation papers, fetched 1.59 million dollars when sold at Sotheby's in 2011. Furthermore, in the early 1990s, Ron Wayne had previously sold one of his copies of this very agreement for a mere 500 dollars, illustrating the dramatic shift in perceived value over time.

The official incorporation of Apple Computer Company took place on April 1, 1976. While Jobs and Wozniak were keenly focused on the commercial viability of their groundbreaking developments, such as the Apple I computer, Wayne opted to safeguard his existing financial stability. The stark contrast between the modest sum Wayne received for his equity and the potential worth of his original 10 percent stake—which some analysts estimate could approach 400 billion dollars based on the company’s current market capitalization—serves as one of the most widely cited examples of a missed opportunity in the annals of technology business history.

The 2026 sale at Christie's is poised to reignite public fascination with the precise moment this technological empire began to take shape. It serves to underscore the immense value inherent in the documented origins of a company that officially launched its journey with the release of the Apple I personal computer. The auction highlights how a simple, signed paper can encapsulate the genesis of a global phenomenon.