A rare NeXTWORLD Expo poster signed by Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs will be auctioned by Boston-based RR Auction. The color 24 x 30 poster promoting the inaugural NeXTWORLD Expo held at San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium and Brooks Hall on Jan. 22–24, 1992, is signed in the upper border in black ink by Jobs.
Having resigned from Apple in the fall of 1985, Jobs founded the NeXT project, a computer and software company aimed at the markets of business and higher education. The first NeXT Computer was introduced in 1988, and the smaller NeXTstation two years later. While the computers themselves saw subpar sales, the NeXTSTEP operating system and development environment proved highly influential.
Apple purchased NeXT in 1997 for $429 million and 1.5 million shares of Apple stock, with Jobs, as part of the agreement, returning to the company he had co-founded in 1976. The consignor of this piece worked for Canon USA and was demonstrating the NeXT computers in a booth at the expo; Jobs signed this poster in person just before the show opened. Jobs died in October 2011 after a prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer.
A signed legal agreement documenting a business venture between Steve Jobs and his college friend Robert Friedland sold for more than $40,000 in 2013. The Fine Autographs and Artifacts Auction from RR Auction began on Feb. 17 and will conclude on March 8.
Robert Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, says the pre-auction estimate for the NeXTWORLD poster is $20,000+. More details can be found online.
