Update Dec 14 The documents originally belonged to Ronald Wayne, an original partner of Jobs and Wozniak who bowed out only 11 days after incorporating (ouch). According to Bloomberg, Wayne sold the papers for several thousand dollars (ouch again) in 1994 to Wade Saadi, who cashed in yesterday. Watch the Bloomberg interview with Saadi here.
Wayne has said he has no regrets about bowing out of Apple. Watch him interviewed 11 minutes into this PBS documentary.
Update 2 p.m. When the auctioner's fee is included, Bloomberg pegs the price at $1.59 million, almost a quarter-millon more than the final bid.
No word yet on who bought it.
Bloomberg includes this interesting tidbit about contract signee Ronald Wayne, who was the third founder of Apple along with Jobs and Wozniak:
Eleven days after signing the contract, Wayne withdrew as a partner. The move is documented by a County of Santa Clara, California, statement and an amendment to the contract, both of which were included in the Sotheby’s lot. Wayne received $800 for relinquishing his 10 percent ownership of Apple, according to the document. He subsequently received an additional payment of $1,500, according to Sotheby’s.
In an interview with Peter Jon Shuler a few months ago, Apple employee No. 12 Dan Kottke had this to say about Wayne's involvement with Apple:
...then there was the small item of the $30,000 worth of small parts that needed to be ordered. That was the point at which Ron Wayne, who was the third founding partner, got cold feet, because he had a mortgage to pay, unlike these 2 kids. He felt like he was the adult and he couldn’t keep up with these guys. When Steve Jobs told him he had ordered $30,000 worth of parts, that was a lot of money, and Ron backed out.
I guess he's sort of the Pete Best of the personal computer age...