Sotheby’s to Auction Steve Jobs Atari Memo (Photo Gallery)

Sotheby’s announced on Friday that it will be auctioning off what the auction giant says is the only known surviving Steve Jobs documents from his time at Atari. The document being auctioned is a five page memo from Mr. Jobs to engineer Stephen Bristow on ways to make Atari World Cup Football, an arcade console soccer game.

Steve Jobs cofounded Apple with Steve Wozniak (and Ron Wayne) in 1976—before that, one of his jobs was at Atari working to improve playability and hardware for the company’s existing games. He also eventually talked his future business partner, Steve Wozniak, into designing the game that became known as Breakout, a huge breakout hit (pun intended) for Atari.

This document, however, is about World Cup and how to improve it. Sotheby’s released images of three of the five pages, with group shots of all five pages posted on the auction (it’s lot 56 of the Fine Books and Manuscripts auction scheduled for June 15th).

One of the most interesting things about the documents is that while it’s an Atari memo written by Atari employee Steve Jobs to Atari employee Stephen Bristow written on Atari letterhead about an Atari product, Steve Jobs put the name of his made up company, All-One Design on the cover sheet (below the Atari logo), as shown below.

Steve Jobs Memo

Steve Jobs Memo Cover Sheet
Image courtesy of Sotheby’s—click for a larger version

He also used a custom All-One Farm Design stamp on another page of the memo, a shown below. Note that the address is the address of his parent’s house in Palo Alto, the same house where Apple Computer was hatched in a garage.

Steve Jobs Memo

Steve Jobs Memo, with All-One Design Farm Stamp
Image courtesy of Sotheby’s—click for a larger version

The third page released by Sotheby’s is a hand-written addition to the memo signed by Steve Jobs, as shown below:

Steve Jobs Memo

Steve Jobs Memo, signed by Mr. Jobs
Image courtesy of Sotheby’s—click for a larger version

To get some added context, Sotheby’s also provided three images of different World Cup consoles. These games are not part of the auction, nor are the images. Sotheby’s provided them in to media outlets for context.

World Cup Football

A Sit-Down Version of World Cup Football
Image courtesy of Sotheby’s—click for a larger version

World Cup Football

World Cup Football Example 2
Image courtesy of Sotheby’s—click for a larger version

World Cup Football

World Cup Football Example 3
Image courtesy of Sotheby’s—click for a larger version

We should also note that the auction includes an Apple I computer. It appears to be just the board, without a case, and Sotheby’s expects it to go from between $120,000 and $180,000. The rest of the auction includes a variety of first edition books, fine manuscripts, letters, drawings, and other documents.

In November of 2011, Sotheby’s announced the auction of Apple’s founding contract between Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne. The auction took place in December, and that contract fetched $1.6 million. The auction house is estimating $10,000-$15,000 for this Atari memo.