RR Auction

This is the second part of our overview of the 2021 auction year – a year where investors channeled more of their wealth into “investments of passion” than ever before. It covers the 150 science, sci-fi and technology artifacts that sold for more than $100,000

Nikola Tesla was one of the world's most important innovators and evidence of the gravitas of the Tesla name was on full display at an auction at Remarkable Rarities (RRAuctions) this week when a four-page autograph letter by Tesla fetched US$341,295.

It would be reasonable to expect a slow year at auction for science, technology and science-fiction, but 2021 is on track for a record, with a slew of knowledge-related objects of note hitting the auction block in recent weeks.

Albert Einstein is the world’s most recognizable and universally loved scientist. So when a handwritten letter appeared at auction in which Einstein wrote his most famous equation in his own hand, it was logical that it should sell for a grand amount.

Designed by computer pioneer Douglas Engelbart and licensed by Apple at the dawn of the personal computing era, the early three-button "X-Y" mouse is a rare and important piece of history.

A rare piece of cyber history that helped usher in the modern computer age is going up for sale as RR Auction's Steve Jobs + Apple Auction offers a functioning Apple-1 computer from the 1970s, complete with its original box signed by Steve Wozniak.

The Apple-1, launched in July 1976, was the computer that helped propel a two-man business operating from a suburban garage into the world's most valuable company a short 35 years later. This month one of the few remaining Apple-1 operating manuals hits the auction block in Boston.

A cybernetic pioneer in the form of a fully functional "Byte Shop"-style Apple I computer is going on the block at RR Auction. One of the most significant early personal computers of the 1970s, the restored original Apple I board with its components and accessories is estimated to fetch US$300,000.

Wernher von Braun's archive of signed technical drawings, schematics, orbital diagrams, and mathematical calculations related to his efforts to sell an ambitious space program to the American public is the centerpiece of the Space and Aviation Auction at Boston-based RR Auction through April 19.

Carl Sagan is best known as a science popularizer, but he was also a pioneer in the early US space program, a planetary scientist, astrobiologist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and social activist. Now a major archive of his work preserved by his assistant Shirley Arden is up for auction.

A secret pouch that flew on the 1971 Apollo 15 mission is up for auction as part of a sale of space memorabilia. It was carried to the surface of the Moon unwittingly by Mission Commander David Scott inside his spacesuit's life support pack..

2016 was a spectacular year for scientific documents and manuscripts, capturing a cavalcade of the most wonderful and important milestones in scientific thought across the ages. The top 50 most important documents of 2016 highlights just how hellishly ignorant humanity was just a short while ago.