Fans of Apple don't shy away from spending top dollar on brand-new products, and in some cases, they don’t mind shelling out money for the older items too.
This is the case for one first-generation iPhone, which was initially released in 2007, and is expected to be sold at auction for $50,000, more than 50 times the price of Apple’s current base-line iPhone 14 Pro.
The phone, which is 8GB in size and still sealed in its original packaging, is being sold on LCG Auctions.
The phone was appraised in 2019 when its owner, Karen Green, was a guest on the talk show “The Doctor & The Diva.” The appraiser then said the phone was more than eight times its initial retail price of $599, putting its pricetag at upwards of $5,000.
“In 2007, I got a new job, and my friends bought me the latest, newest first-generation iPhone,” Green said. “It had all these neat things on there to do a new job, like a calendar.”
However, even with the fancy bells and whistles that came with the first breakthrough smartphone, Green said she didn’t open it because she already had a new phone.
“I didn’t want to get rid of my phone, and I figured, ‘It’s an iPhone, so it will never go out of date,’” she said on the show.
While she was wrong about it never going out of date, her being frugal has now paid off, as the once-gifted phone is now a piece of tech history and is expected to open at LCG Auctions at $2,500.
Two bids have already been placed on the iPhone, and experts for the auction house have shared they expect it to reach $50,000. The auction is open now until Feb. 19.
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“There’s little doubt that interest in culturally relevant collectibles is rapidly increasing, and despite the impressive sales numbers, many believe the space is still in its infancy,” LCG says.
This isn’t the first original iPhone to be sold at auction, as one sold in August for $35,414 and another through LCG in October for $39,339.
That being said, those looking to get their hands on some history will have to pay some serious cash.
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