Everyone knows there's no end to the fervour that surrounds Apple and its mystique, but even we were shocked with the news that the company's founding papers sold at auction for over £1m.

The documents eventually went for $1,594,500, which was 10 times auction house Sotheby's prediction, as five bidders drove the price skywards, each seeking to own a little piece of Apple's history.

The eventual winner, according to the BBC, was Eduardo Cisneros, chief executive of a firm called Cisneros Corporation, which owns stakes in a range of businesses covering real estate, TV production and telecoms. He'll probably frame them and hope they appreciate in value.

The documents belonged to the third (forgotten) Apple founder, Ronald Wayne, who originally took a 10 per cent stake in the company before backing out over worries that Apple would go nowhere and he'd lose his outlay. Ouch.

Even this story is a tragic one for Wayne as he sold the documents in 1994 for a few thousand dollars, according to the BBC, and had to watch as they went for over £1m. Some people appear destined never to catch a break.

14 Dec 2011