An original 1st gen iPhone auction has set a new record for selling a sealed 2007 model for an exorbitant price of $63,356.40, 16 years after its release. Tattoo artist Karen Green owned the 8GB storage phone and initially expected it to fetch $50,000. However, the bidding war resulted in a staggering 16 times the original pricing of $599 after receiving 27 bids.
LCG Auctions facilitated the bidding, describing the phone as a “highly-desirable factory-sealed first-generation original Apple iPhone from 2007,” with a starting bid of $2,500. The item’s description stated that the phone is “one of the most important and ubiquitous inventions of our lifetime,” appealing to both collectors and investors.
Karen had previously brought her phone to the Doctor and the Diva’s ‘Treasure Hunt Tuesday’ show, where an expert estimated its worth to be $5,000. She received the phone as a gift from friends but never opened it since she had already purchased a new phone.
Years later, she learned that collectors were interested in buying it for a higher price but decided to keep the phone, which eventually sold for a staggering amount. The first iPhone, also known as the iPhone 1 or the iPhone 2G, offered 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB of storage, a far cry from today’s phones with significantly more storage and advanced features like larger RAM and high pixel-count cameras.