An unused first-generation Apple iPhone from 2007 sold at auction for $190,372 on Sunday — a record amount for an iPhone that’s more than 300 times its original retail price.
The first edition iPhone, which was still in its factory packaging and was never set up, topped past record auction prices of $39,339 last October and $63,356 in February — both of which were 8GB models — to become the most expensive iPhone sold at auction. Bidding for the rare iPhone started at $10,000.
This particular model of iPhone is exceptionally rare which helped yield the record price at auction. As LCD Auctions explained, “The original 4GB model is considered a ‘Holy Grail’ amongst iPhone collectors. Its extreme scarcity is directly related to its limited production.”
FIRST-GENERATION IPHONE SELLS FOR MORE THAN $63K AT AUCTION
The 4GB model was made available for sale alongside the 8GB version in June 2007 after it was introduced by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. Its original retail price was $499.
Most iPhone buyers at the time opted to pay the extra $100 to double the storage capacity of their phone even after prices for the 4GB version were slashed by one-third. When sales of the 4GB iPhone model lagged, Apple made the decision to discontinue its production in early September 2007.
UNOPENED FIRST-GENERATION IPHONE SELLS FOR OVER $39K AT AUCTION
LCD Auctions noted in its listing that the “phone’s provenance is pristine as the consignor was part of the original engineering team at Apple when the iPhone first launched.” The auction house added, “Collectors and investors would be hard pressed to find a superior example.”
Apple’s iPhone was named TIME Magazine’s Invention of the Year in 2007. That accolade proved prescient, as the iPhone revolutionized mobile phone technology and helped make smartphones a ubiquitous fixture of life in the 21st century.
The latest iteration of the iPhone, known as the iPhone 14, is currently sold at prices starting at $799.
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Rare memorabilia related to Apple and Steve Jobs appears regularly on auction sites. A prototype version of the Apple-1 Computer made in the 1970s was sold last year for over $677,000. Apple’s founding documents — which were cosigned by Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne — were sold at auction in 2011 for about $1.6 million.