Microsoft might need to upgrade its security after an anonymous bidder won Bill Gates' employee ID card at RR Auctions on Thursday night.
The winner paid more than $7,000 for the Microsoft founder's ID badge, labeled "Employee."
The consigner was a former security worker for Microsoft who originally printed the card for Gates around 1995. At the time, the company was upgrading security and adding RFID chips for efficiency.
But this first card wasn't good enough, prompting the consignor to print another of higher quality and giving the second to Gates. In a stroke of genius, he decided to keep the first, unprogrammed copy for himself — despite official protocol.
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The lot description notes it is likely the only such example from that era of comparable condition.
Collectibles relating to tech legends are dominated by all things Steve Jobs, however, Gates is no slouch.
RR Auctions has previously sold an early 1978 Gates letter for $75,821, a Gates personally-used TRS-80 Model 100 computer with an autograph note for $25,000 and a Gates business card for $7,366.
A dollar bill signed by both Gates and Warren Buffett sold for $2,701 in 2014.
Other ID cards of prominent figures have fetched large sum in the past at auction, such as a Department of Defense ID belonging to Marilyn Monroe, which sold for $37,500 in September 2022, and President John F. Kennedy’s signed Senate ID, which sold for $20,017 in May 2017.
Lionel Messi’s boyhood identification card from his first organized soccer club sold in 2021 for $181,200, a record price for any ID.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.