A floppy disk signed by Steve Jobs is currently selling for $8000

You probably haven’t bought a floppy disk in a while. Even if you have, you likely haven’t blown $8000 on one – but if your budget for legacy hardware does stretch that far, then RR Auction has a listing that may be of some interest.

The auction company is selling a floppy disk signed by Apple founder Steve Jobs. The father of the iPhone’s signature is on a copy of Macintosh System Tools 6.0, which the company describes as “in fine condition, with slight brushing to the ink.”

Related: Best MacBook

At the time of writing, the disk has attracted the attention of 12 bidders, and the listing’s current top bid is $8000 – or around £6200. That’s a bit higher than the $7500 RR Auction expected the disk to go for, especially as there’s still five days left to run.

Other than Apple’s enduring popularity, why has the bidding got so high? Well as the listing explains, Jobs was a “reluctant signer” who “often declined to comply with the requests of collectors.” In fact, by Jobs autograph standards, bidding is still a little sluggish on the disk – earlier this year a signed Toy Story poster went for $31,250, and a pre-Apple CV sold for $125,797.08 back in 2018.  

Related: Best laptop

Things are likely to pick up on Wednesday December 4 when the 30-minute rule kicks in. At that point, interested parties have just half an hour to bid, and only existing bidders are allowed to up their offers. If anybody does, the 30-minute counter resets and the process repeats until there’s a bid that nobody wants to top.

So still plenty of time for that figure to increase then, though finding a Mac that can actually read the disk will be a challenge. The company famously abandoned the floppy disk drive back in 1998 with the introduction of the iMac G3. At the time it seemed controversial, but it wasn’t long before other manufacturers were following suit.