SAN FRANCISCO: A Silicon Valley recycling company disclosed on Monday that it was looking for a woman who dropped off a rare Apple computer subsequently snapped up by a collector for $200,000.

The woman didn’t leave her name or ask for a receipt when she dropped off a box of unwanted gadgets, including a first-generation Apple I computer considered a coveted collectable by computer history buffs.

Workers at the Clean Bay Area recycling specialty firm in Silicon Valley said the woman stopped by in April and told of being on a mission to get rid of clutter from her house after the death of her husband.

A couple of weeks later workers went through the box and found an Apple I, the first generation of hand-built computers created by Steve Wozniak when the world-changing company and its renowned co-founder Steve Jobs operated out of a family garage in 1976.

Only about 200 of the first-generation desktop computers were put together by the company co-founded by Jobs, Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne.

An executive from the recycling firm said he remembers the woman, who stopped by in a sport utility vehicle, and that the company’s policy of splitting proceeds evenly with the donors of items has him on a mission to find her.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2015

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