If you think a new iPhone is expensive, you’ll want to sit down because an old iPhone just sold for nearly $200,000.
An original, first-generation iPhone 4GB from 2007 set a new record price for an iPhone selling at auction when it hammered for $190,372 at LCG Auctions Summer Premier auction July 16. The unopened iPhone was bought for nearly 400 times its original price, smashing the old record of $63,000 for an 8GB model sold by the same auction house earlier this year.
Courtesy LCG Auctions
Both iPhone models were released on June 29, 2007. The 4GB phone cost $499 and was discontinued in 2008, making it especially rare; the 8G phone retailed for $599, with consumers apparently thinking the extra $100 was a small price to pay for twice as much storage. Apple stopped supporting the iPhone 4GB in 2010. The record-setting iPhone is factory-sealed in its original black box with a picture of an iPhone showing 12 icons. The consignor was on the Apple engineering team when the phone was launched.
“The original 4GB model is considered a ‘Holy Grail’ amongst iPhone collectors,” LGC Auctions wrote in its listing for the latest sale. “Its extreme scarcity is directly related to its limited production.”
Courtesy LCG Auctions
The starting bid was $10,000. LGC Auctions, which expected the phone to sell for $50,000-$100,000, noted it’s “proven to be a popular high-end collectible.” Apple is currently selling the iPhone 14 at prices that start at $799.
Since the original iPhone was launched, Apple has released at least one new model a year. There have been 38 models total, spanning 16 generations. The current generation (as of this writing) is the iPhone 14. Each new model brings new features like larger screens, stronger construction, higher resolution screens, improved cameras and faster connectivity. Compared to these later models, the iPhone 4GB seems like a throwback to an earlier time – all of 16 years, eons ago in tech years. All of which makes the iPhone 4GB seem almost quaint, even if at the time the phone was revolutionary, transforming phones, the Internet, and even the image of Apple itself. While the newest iPhone models are desirable as flashy new toys or status symbols, this one is something more: a turning point in technological history.
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