A forged eBay listing purportedly featuring an employee #10 pass and a hand-drawn map of Apple’s first campus initially appeared convincing. However, its authenticity came into question, and was ultimately resolved by someone who would know best.
Although the listing has since been removed by eBay, it was captured and preserved online.
Apple engineering manager Eric Vitiello noticed the listing and shared the link on Mastodon, commenting, “Ooh, neat auction.”
Panic founder Cabel Sasser engaged in a dialogue with the seller, who maintained that the items were genuine. The authenticity was definitively debunked when Chris Espinosa, known as employee #8, declared it a fake.
Espinosa, who joined Apple as a BASIC programmer at the age of 14 and has been with the company nearly continuously since, stated that both the pass and drawing were forgeries.
He claimed particular expertise on the map, as it was allegedly drawn by him. Espinosa pointed out that it was not his work because he always used a specific type of notepad, which was not the one used for the drawing.
He also highlighted four key issues with the forged pass:
- – “That’s not Sherry Livingston.”
- – “That wasn’t taken with a Polaroid with a flash.”
- – “The laminate dimensions are all wrong.”
- – “That’s a computer font, not an IBM Selectric Orator type ball.”
Despite these clear indicators, the seller continued to insist the items were real when Sasser engaged further.
The seller provided a supposed receipt from the German Red Cross, which had several issues. Sasser confirmed these problems by consulting online, where Germans identified errors that indicated the invoice was also fake.
When confronted, the seller panicked and changed their story, claiming they had bought the items on eBay.
Unfortunately, by the time the truth came to light, the auction had concluded, and someone had spent $946 on the fake items. However, with eBay having removed the listing, it is likely the buyer received a refund.
