A Rare, First-Generation iPhone Just Sold for Nearly $40,000 at Auction - Robb Report

The iPhone outgo $599 erstwhile it archetypal came retired much than a decennary ago. Prices person since gone up—to astir $40,000, arsenic it turns out.

Over the weekend, a factory-sealed exemplary of the first-edition iPhone sold for conscionable implicit $39,000 astatine LCG Auctions. The 2007 instrumentality was archetypal listed by the Louisiana-based auction location astatine the extremity of September and went nether the gavel connected Sunday. Bidding started astatine $2,500 and closed astatine $39,339.60. For context, that’s 65 times the smartphone’s archetypal sticker price.

What prompted 5 figures? The 15-year-old telephone is successful “exceptional” information with “pristine” stickers and labels. What’s more, the instrumentality is inactive wrong the archetypal packaging and has ne'er been activated. In addition, the container sports a life-size representation of the telephone with its 12 archetypal icons (it was earlier apps became a thing). 

The archetypal iPhone came with either 4 GB oregon 8 GB of retention (this peculiar 1 has the latter), on with a two-megapixel camera, an innovative touchscreen and the Safari web browser. LCG Auctions laminitis Mark Montero said that to find an unopened 2007 exemplary similar this is “truly remarkable,” particularly 1 successful specified immaculate information with its mill seal intact.

“The iPhone is 1 the astir important inventions of the 21st century,” Montero told Robb Report via email. “When it was initially released 15 years ago, we had nary thought of the interaction it would person going forward.”

Indeed, the basal exemplary of the precocious released iPhone 14 features 128 GB of retention (yes, you work that right), a 12-megapixel main camera with an ultra-wide lens, improved functionality and a ton of innovative features. The instrumentality that Steve Jobs astatine unveiled astatine MacWorld San Francisco successful January 2007 is what started it all.

This isn’t the archetypal clip that a first-generation iPhone has fetched a beauteous penny, either. Last August, a 2007 exemplary sold for conscionable nether $36,000 astatine RR Auctions. Might beryllium worthy holding onto your aged phones, folks.