Here’s a quick and cautionary tale.

This eBay auction, spotted by Eric Vitiello, immediately caught my eye:

Wow. Someone was selling Apple Employee #10’s employee badge?! What an incredible piece of Apple history! Sure, it’s not Steve Jobs’ badge (despite the auction title), but there are only so many of these in the world — especially from one of the first ten employees.

I persistently pored through the provided pictures.

At first, it looked good. The plastic was scuffed with age, the tape on the map was yellowed, the logo was (mostly) correct, and Sherry Livingston really was Employee #10.

But it also felt a little off. The scuffing looked… sandpapery. The splotches on the map felt overcooked. And I couldn’t stop looking at the “typewritten” part…

This badge would’ve been (obviously!) made before desktop publishing. A badge template would’ve been printed by a local printing company, then fed into a typewriter to type the individual employee details. And that typed text is suspiciously uniform.

And just as I was beginning to 🧐, along came Chris:

“That’s… fake. Both of them.”

Oh snap. It’s really fake?

What does this Chris guy know, anyway? Well, he’s Chris Espinosa. Who just so happens to be Apple Employee #8.

(Trivia: he joined the company when he was 14… and still works there!)

And we know exactly what Chris’ badge looked like:

I asked Chris (who I truly admire!) for more thoughts:

So, yeah. One of the most qualified people on planet earth to say this is a fake, is saying this is a fake.

I had no choice at this point. I simply had to meddle.

From… the German Red Cross?! How specific!

It seems like the German Red Cross runs a kind of second hand/charity shop, so ok, sure. But why would the German Red Cross have the employee badge for Apple Employee #10?

I couldn’t wait. The seller sent the Red “Croos” proof just a few hours later. (Enough time to… create it?)

At first blush, again, this provenance looks pretty good, right? A German purchase receipt, dated 2001, for the item pictured. The right logo. A nice emboss. Seems plausible.

But, again again, I had a weird feeling — this series of photos was trying too hard. That binder labelled “BILLS 200[0]—2010”, conveniently flipped upside down for casual authenticity? Why would you put that in these photos unless you were trying a bit too hard to make your case? It felt like a set dresser trying to stage a movie scene.

The seller added:

As you can see, the invoice is expressed in the old German currency, the German mark, before the entry of the EURO in the years following.

No way. A regular human wouldn’t point this out. Someone proud of a detail they thought of in their forgery would point this out. This little detail would’ve been far more effective for me to discover on my own.

It was time to totally close the case. It was time to engage the internet.

The Mastodon response from Germans was swift and brutal.

There was no doubt. This “proof” was yet another forgery.

I told the seller this. And then, weirdly, for the amount of effort put into this, they made a very dumb error:

Wait… what?!?

I never received a reply.

Case closed!?

There’s just one small, sad problem…

…yes, the item sold before I could finish this post. So, my sincere apologies to whoever out there just spent $946.00 on a total (but interesting!) work of fiction.

Here are the key takeaways from our meeting today:

• Beware of fraudulent pieces of Apple history
• Don’t buy anything from this particular seller
• When in doubt, Engage The Internet®

Best, Cabel

PS: I hope you’re having a nice week