Manhattan Project window, Apple-1 computer and Darwin letter up for auction

A working Apple-1 computer, a window from the Manhattan Project’s bomb-development site and a letter from Charles Darwin discussing the details of barnacle sex will go on sale this month at an auction of rare scientific artifacts. The vintage Apple computer will lead off the technology section of the auction, sponsored by the British-owned auction house Bonhams. The Apple-1 model was the first personal computer with a single circuit board ever sold. It’s valued at around half a million dollars.

The Manhattan Project is known as the most ambitious weapons program in human history. […] This window is a symbol of that project, and the dual ingenuity of man - the creative on one side, and the destructive on the other. It is a truly incredible piece.

Cassandra Hatton, senior specialist at Bonhams in charge of the History of Science sale

A viewing window from the Manhattan Project - the secret government operation during World War II designed to develop the world’s first atomic bomb - is valued at around $200,000. It comes from the project’s Hanford site in Washington state, where physicists developed the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. A collection of astronomer George Willis Ritchey’s deep-space photographs, books and telescope blueprints is also on sale. And the auction also features an 1857 letter from Charles Darwin, believed to be worth between $20,000 to $30,000, to a man who supposedly witnessed barnacle sex. Bidding will take place on Wednesday.

[The Apple-1] is one of 50 hand-built for the ByteShop by Steve Wozniak in the summer of 1976 in Steve Jobs’ garage (or possibly bedroom).

Bonhams catalogue listing

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