The fake employee badge as advertised on eBay
A vintage Apple employee badge on eBay was proven to be a brazen forgery — but not in time to prevent it being bought.
This isn’t the first time that someone has sold a fake related to Apple, but usually it’s hardware. Now an eBay seller auctioned off what he or she described as Steve Jobs‘s badge, but was for Sherry Livingston, employee #10 — or rather, it wasn’t.
It was first spotted by Mastodon user Eric Vitiello, who initially believed the eBay listing. However, the details of the badge and of the accompanying hand-drawn map of Apple’s office layout were then debunked.
Then Cabel Sasser, co-founder of Panic Inc., contacted the seller and has detailed their exchange in his blog. Over a series of messages, the seller was inconsistent in his or her story of how they obtained the item, but did ultimately provide a German purchase receipt from 2001.
Unfortunately, none of the proof of this came in time to prevent the item being sold. Including shipping, the fake went for just over $1,000.
Separately, buyers were more fortunate in 2022 when what was believed to be an Atari job application form by Steve Jobs was withdrawn from sale. That was on a memorabilia auction site rather than eBay, and the site took it down once there was doubt over its provenance.
