Over 500 retro Apple products to be auctioned in California next month

More than 500 retro Apple products are scheduled to go on display for the public between March 27 and 30 at Julien's auction house in California. Following the display, the items will be auctioned live on the 30th, the auction house said in a press release.

Recently, an unopened first-generation iPhone was auctioned for a whopping $63,356, more than 100 times the original price of the phone when it arrived in the markets in 2007. While this is a mind-boggling amount to pay for a phone, for fans of Steve Jobs, the creator of the iPhone and one of the founders of Apple, it is just a matter of paying homage to the man and his creativity.

A treasure trove of Apple products

Apple fans have another opportunity to look at Jobs' legacy through the products he created much prior to the iPhone when they are displayed at Beverley Hills, California next month.

Interestingly, the collection of over 500 products belongs to just one man, Hanspeter Luzi, who lived millions of miles away in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Luzi also had a vintage sewing machine collection that went on to become a museum in Germany. His collection of Apple products, too, has a fascinating story.

A remedial teacher for children with special needs, Luzi spent much of his time developing educational games and teaching aids for kids. An outdoorsy person, Luzi loved history as much as he loved music and when personal computers started being introduced, he become a volunteer IT manager for schools and help them maintain their computer rooms.

Over 25 years, Luzi became quite skilled in both computer hardware and software but also made it a point to buy outdated equipment from schools for his Apple collection. Luzi passed away in an accident in 2015 and his family decided to display the collection in public for the first time, before auctioning it.

Items in the collection include:

• Apple II Europlus Computer

Made for the European markets, the computer debuted in 1978 and feature two floppy disk drives and a monitor.

• 1983 Lisa I computer

One of the first commercial computers to have a graphical user interface and a mouse, LISA stands for Local Integrated Software Architecture. The project was marred by high costs and multiple issues, which saw Jobs being shunted to the Macintosh project.

• Macintosh

Jobs introduced the Macintosh to the world in 1984 and the 1986 Macintosh Plus held the record for the longest-produced Macintosh model until the Mac Pro broke the record in 2018.

• Macintosh Portable

Introduced in 1989, the Macintosh Portable was one of the first computers to feature an active matrix LCD screen but wasn't a hot favorite due to its heavy batteries and high price, leading to its discontinuation.

• iMac G3

This special edition Mac sold between 1998 and 2003 marked the return of Jobs to Apple as CEO in 1996

In addition to these, there are also many Apple accessories such as the IIE and IIC joysticks, a Mac and Frost cooling unit, a MacADIOS, an analog-to-digital audio converter, motherboards, and much more.

The auction will also be held online.