If you’re a fan of Steve Jobs, you may soon own a signed, handwritten letter written by the late Apple co-founder at the age of 18. But it won’t be cheap.
British auction house Bonhams is set to auction a letter that Jobs wrote to his childhood friend Tim Brown on November 3. The auction house expects a one-page note – containing Jobs’ thoughts on Zen Buddhism and his plans to travel. To participate in the Kumbh Mela in India, a Hindu pilgrimage and religious festival – to bring in between $200,000 and $300,000.
The letter is from February 23, 1974, just one day before Jobs’ 19th birthday, and two years before Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple. Bonhams describes the collectible as the first handwritten letter by Steve Jobs to be sold at auction.
Jobs began the letter by responding to some of Brown’s previous correspondence, writing in all lower-case: “Tim I’ve read your letter many times / I don’t know what to say. Many mornings have come and gone / People have come And gone / I’ve loved and I’ve cried many times. / Somehow, though, underneath it all doesn’t change – do you understand?”
Brown and Jobs attended Homestead High School together in Cupertino, California, where Apple is now headquartered. According to Brown’s LinkedIn profile, the two friends remained in touch for the rest of their lives until Jobs’ death in 2011.
In the letter, Jobs explained to Brown that he was saving his money to travel to India. Jobs spent seven months in India later that year, in search of spiritual enlightenment, before returning to Silicon Valley with a shaved head in the style of a Buddhist monk.
Around the same time, Jobs began to meditate and experiment regularly with psychedelic drugs. The Apple co-founder later told biographer Walter Isaacson that psychedelics “reinforced my understanding of what was important – making great things rather than making money, putting things back into history and the stream of human consciousness as much as I do.” could.”
Of course, Jobs will make a lot of money in the end. When he died in 2011, Jobs had an estimated personal net worth of $8.3 billion. Today, Apple’s market value is approximately $2.5 trillion.
Jobs ended his letter to Brown by writing, “I’ll end by saying that I don’t even know where to begin.” He then signed his name at the bottom of the page before signing it with the word “Shanti”, which means “peace” in Sanskrit.
“This paper gives us a fascinating insight into the mental processes of one of the world’s greatest creators and entrepreneurs,” Adam Stackhouse, Bonhams’ director of the history of science and technology business, said in a statement last week. “No autograph letter from Jobs has come up at auction before, and certainly no material like such disclosure and insight.”