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15-Year-Old Starts Comprehensive Apple Museum With Lawn-Mowing Money

Once upon a time American teenagers pushed lawnmowers all summer, slowly amassing a bundle of singles that they’d use to buy themselves a coveted item. It’s been a long time since we’ve heard of any kid doing this anymore, which makes Alex Jason’s story all the more surprising. Maine-based Jason, just 15 years of age, has spent five years cutting grass and pouring the savings into a rather unusual project: Alex’s Apple Orchard, a self-curated museum of Apple-designed goods.

“I realized these computers are being thrown away,” Jason told Cult of Mac. “That’s kind of how it snowballed. I wanted to create a collection, share it online and create a museum.”

While older, unused Apples aren’t worth much and can be had for a song, Jason went much further. By meeting other collectors he managed to gain the attention of ex-Apple engineers, some of whom had saved old prototypes they’d worked on—many of them housed in transparent plastic or, it seems, whatever color was still in the injection-molding machine at the time—and got them to part with the machines. Here are some of these rare  prototypes:

Jason’s collection, currently laid out in the 1,000-square-foot family basement, contains over 250 items including not just computers and devices, but advertising materials, posters, schematics and Apple signage. Perhaps what’s most impressive is that Jason has developed an eye for design and a talent for narration: Peep the following video, where he chooses one of Apple’s more outside-the-box designs—the gooseneck G4 iMac—and runs down why the design is significant:

Obviously the family basement cannot be opened to the public, and Alex, along with his supportive dad Bill, are planning to move the collection into a defunct library that has been donated for the purpose.

Here’s Alex’s collection in its current state in the basement, providing a hint of what you’d get to see when the real museum is ready:

There is only one Apple computer Jason has not been able to source: A Lisa 1, pictured below, the rare dual-floppy-disk predecessor to the original Mac. If any of you have a line on one, please drop the kid a line!