back to article Steve Jobs' $4.01 RadioShack check set to fetch small fortune at auction

A few months after he co-founded Apple on April Fool's Day in 1976, Steve Jobs cut a check to RadioShack for $4.01. That same check could now be yours if you're willing to beat the current top bid of $27,500. The rather ornate hand-written check is up for auction until Wednesday through RR Auctions, where 24 bids have been …

  1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    RadioShack was wonderful

    Back in the days when RadioShack was everywhere it was the best place to go when you were learning to do electronics and build your own computers, you could just walk in and pick up all the bits to go home and start to learn how to build a computer ... years later it got a great and very accurate illustration of Young Sheldon buying a computer and then becoming the star in The Big Bang Theory.

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: RadioShack was wonderful

      They were awesome. You could buy any electronic componentry, including 74LSxxxx chips and some CMOS stuff in single quantities and I REALLY miss that.

      I recently needed a 1uF capacitor for my garage door and there is no longer anywhere that sells electronic components by the piece to anyone that walks in.

      Fortunately, we have Sky Craft in Orlando, which has an entire supermarket size aisle of capacitors. And another aisle of resistors. They even found a Radio Shack store display with component drawers and set it up for us old fogies. Sky Craft started out as aerospace surplus when the space program would scrap an entire computer for having the wrong color paint or something. That practice has stopped, but they still have unique stuff, like equipment parachutes, cleanroom bunny suits, and weird test equipment.

      I got a TRS-80 Model I Level I 4K for Christmas, 1979. I remember arguing with my mother about the $160(?) for a Level II kit, for 16K and enhanced BASIC. She worked on mainframes and 16K was an ungodly amount of memory that you'd never use as a single person. She passed away before I was able to show her my desktop with 32GB of RAM.

      1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

        Re: RadioShack was wonderful

        before I was able to show her my desktop with 32GB of RAM.

        The shock of that could have been fatal. May she rest in peace.

      2. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: RadioShack was wonderful

        Fortunately, we have Sky Craft in Orlando, which has an entire supermarket size aisle of capacitors. And another aisle of resistors.

        If I ever get back the Orlando I will be in this place, my wife will not be happy but that's a real playground for me. The rest of it sounds like the old J&N Factors Bull Electrical at Brighton. Now called bullybeef I believe. We had a TV end electrical / record shop that also sold the RadioShack (Tandy) catalogue items - though it was an independent shop. And another proper electronics shop that got me started in tinkering. All long gone and missed.

        I order from bitsbox, but do a lot of parallel combinations to get the Ω or F value I need.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: RadioShack was wonderful

        "they still have unique stuff, like equipment parachutes, cleanroom bunny suits, and weird test equipment."

        If you ever find yourself in the Minneapolis, MN, USA area, stop by the Axeman store. The neighborhood used to be a bit sketchy, so use appropriate caution.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: RadioShack was wonderful

          Where there's a store for Axemen, comments about the neighbourhood are probably superfluous.

  2. Howard Sway Silver badge

    Why wasn't the check cashed?

    And how come it has "re-emerged" decades later as an auction item? I mean, it's not as if Radio Shack would have known that this tiny purchase was going to lead to the formation of a massively successful company in the future, so they;d be better off keeping it instead of sending it to the bank...... Did someone have a spooky premonition? Or maybe Jobs had a pal in the shop who accepted the check as payment, then "forgot" to put it through and accidentally kept it instead.....

    1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

      Re: Why wasn't the check cashed?

      They probably got it back from the back once it cleared - some systems still work that way, as a way of acknowledging the transfer - then had to keep it for the tax return or something.

      7 years later clearing out the filing cabinets someone looked at it and thought, "Hey, I've heard of that guy."

    2. Medieval Research Council

      Re: Why wasn't the check cashed?

      I recollect from living in the USA for 6 years, your paper checks were returned to you after processing and payment. So possibly there is a stack of Apple/Jobs checks somewhere.

      1. Philo T Farnsworth Silver badge

        Re: Why wasn't the check cashed?

        I can confirm that up until relatively recently (the last 20 years or so), it was standard practice for most banks to return canceled checks to the issuers for record keeping.

        I banked with Wells Fargo during that era and even had that "it looks like money" check style for several years. You also got a nice leather wallet/checkbook cover as a side benefit.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Why wasn't the check cashed?..it was either not deposited or it bounced.

          I remember the once ever 5 years or so ritual of putting huge stacks of canceled checks through the shredder. Last one was about 10 years ago when I found a box of them from the 1990's that had been over looked.

          I ended up with Wells Fargo (totally evil) during the colourful Stage Coach checkbook (with cheap plastic wallet) era because my bank, Crocker, was sunk by the SoCal real estate bubble of the 1980's. From the get go WF were terrible but every time I tried to escape WF either bought the bank, Barclays US subsidiary etc, or the alternative was even more incompetent and nasty, Bank of America etc. Eventually ended up with a great bank, Washington Mutual, who were sunk by just one small division of the bank who wrote tens of billions of junk real estate paper which sank them in 2008. Who were then bought by JP Morgan who are only mostly evil. Really nice people at WaMu. Felt very sorry for them in 2008. By an odd coincidence my nearest bank branch that summer of 2008 was the big WaMu tower in Seattle. Their HQ. It was like banking on the Titanic with the iceberg bobbing on the horizon. Drawing closer by the week.

          Did I mention that Wells Fargo are probably the most evil bank ever. None of the British banks even come close. Although some of the French banks put up some feisty competition for the title.

          1. JacobZ

            Re: Why wasn't the check cashed?..it was either not deposited or it bounced.

            Deutsche Bank has entered the chat.

        2. PRR Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Why wasn't the check cashed?

          > until relatively recently (the last 20 years or so)

          I was routinely getting "all" my checks back 7 years ago. Then high-class checks like utility bill payments stopped coming back. I still got back my checks to my mechanic and my propane guy. 3 years ago they all stopped. But I can show you shoeboxes full of cancelled checks just about old enough now to burn.

          I remember writing checks to The Shack in about that period. (Also purchase orders.) I can picture $4 as a small buy but it might save the day if I was doing a concert that night. I have whomped-up a line booster in a few hours of fresh RS parts.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Do you think it was supposed to be cashed?

      He wrote a check for 4.01 on April 1 (4/1 in U.S. date order). I expect it was written to be framed as a tribute to having the company name on a new check book. It was probably found in a drawer or hanging in the executive toilet.

      1. PickledAardvark

        Re: Do you think it was supposed to be cashed?

        And the cheque number is 401.

        1. PRR Silver badge

          Re: Do you think it was supposed to be cashed?

          > And the cheque number is 401.

          In the OCR. The legacy human readable number is 195 in the top-left.

          https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/12/05/jobs-radio-shack-check.jpg

          Already I suspect hanky-panky.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Probably either a cable or a few baggies of electronic components..

    So minus sales tax the bill was around $3.60 / $3.70. The Radio Shack catalogue for 1976 shows component baggies for $1.29 each and clips / plugs etc 2 for $1.30 etc. Exactly the sort of stuff Radio Shack was good for back then if you just wanted a few components in a hurry. Not sure if Jameco in Redwood City was around in 1976 but that was a bit of drive from Palo Alto. And that was many years before the Fry's off El Camino opened. The go to place for years in Palo Alto if you needed IC's or a bag of resistors at 11pm.

    I wonder why RS kept the check. My first thought when I saw the check was - Bet it probably bounced knowing Steve Jobs. Any idea whats on the back of the check. A Wells Fargo red stamp saying Insufficient funds?

  4. aerogems Silver badge
    Joke

    Pbbbbt

    A copy of first issue of the Superman comic went for $5.3m, and is also worth only 10 cents per the cover! The inflation on this check is pathetic by comparison.

    1. David 132 Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Pbbbbt

      Well yes, but only one of them features a god-like superhero who single-handedly saved civilization.

      And the other one's about Superman.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Pbbbbt

        Although we only have a highly fictionalized biography to prove that. Written by some dodgy journalist

  5. Bebu
    Windows

    01/100 a US thing?

    I noticed the "and 01/100 dollars" on this cheque which I have never seen, Is only on "checks" :) or Jobs peculiarity?

    Having used a cheque book for 40 years I would have always written $4.01 underlining the cents and "FOUR DOLLARS & ONE CENT."

    Not that I would be so cheap as to write a cheque for such a piddling sum (even in '76) - my arm has always been long enough to reach down into my pocket to retrieve a $5 note. ;)

    Actually thinking about it what would a bank make of say "9 11/37 dollars?" At least with the old money (£sd) fractions of 240 would make some sense... or 480 in ha'pennies or 960 in farthing or 1920 in half farthings :)

    Cheques are/were promissory notes so makes sense that they were returned to account holder after clearance. These days you can see the image of your presented/cleared cheque online. Unfortunately in a few yearsthese instruments are scheduled to abolished in these parts. :(

    1. Ashentaine

      Re: 01/100 a US thing?

      I've always heard it was a practice from way back when paper checks were still new-ish to the average household, both to fill up the line to prevent someone from altering it and to make sure that an unattentive bank employee didn't overlook the decimal point when adjusting your bank balance. Dunno if that's true, but everyone who was my parent's age always claimed to have that horror story of how a $10.00 check was cashed for $1000 and the bank refused to fix it, so take what you will from that.

      1. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker

        Re: 01/100 a US thing?

        I agree, it's a thing.

        Here's a related thing to the reply to the post asking the question (not to detract from said reply, sorry): I just recently wrote my first check in months [1] [2] for an "even dollar" amount, and per custom -- as learned from my parents -- added "and no/100" to make it clear that "no" (zero) cents are to be added to the dollars involved. Using "00/100" could easily be hand-modified to be "100/100" or more.

        As the other reply alluded to, filling up the line prevents even worse manipulation.

        1. I pay most everything via direct EFT (mortgage, credit payments, and utility bills) or debit when necessary. Even my weekly charitable giving (church), which was the last one to transition, uses EFT.

        2. Coincidentally, it was the last check in the current "book". I may have more books in a "check box" somewhere but can't be bothered to look right now. Let's see how long it takes until I need another physical check!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 01/100 a US thing?..looks like a Jobs affectation.

      Thinking back over the decades (to the early 1980's) I dont think I saw a single hand written check using the 1/100 format. All were in the $$$.cc numeric format with the full amount spelled out fully, thousands, hundreds etc. and any extraneous space struck through. So Jobs affectation of what was by that time an anachronism is very much par for course for the sociopath he was.

      1. boris9k3

        Re: 01/100 a US thing?..looks like a Jobs affectation.

        When I was taught how to write a check in grade school 01/100 was the standard method. Its a real thing

  6. JacobZ

    The 1/100 format is very much not an anachronism. Everybody I know uses that format (for the few checks we still write).

    The only time I see the dollars.cents format is on printed checks.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Must be a regional thing..

      ..because I dont remember seeing the 1/100 on a hand written West Coast checks. Over five decades. In fact the only time I distinctly remember seeing it at all was on a printed check from a stock-brokerage when I dumped all my stock options the day after they vested. In 1993. It caught my attention precisely because it was so unusual. In my experience.

      Although it could have been a 1970's thing in Palo Alto. Like polyester leisure suits. And disco. Or that really great Good Earth restaurant that used to be on University Ave. Which until it closed in the 1990's always had the Really Groovy 1970's decor and vibe. Walking in the door was like a 1976 flashback. Outta sight. University Ave is just a wasteland now.

      1. PRR Silver badge

        Re: Must be a regional thing..

        I was daddy-taught to write XX/100, with the Xes SO big and wide they could not be kited to "88" without looking suspicious. (And even then, an 88 cent kite was hardly worth the effort and risk.)

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