First-gen iPhone fetches $63,000 at auction

A 2007 first-generation iPhone was sold for $63,356 at LCG Auctions on Sunday, exceeding expectations of around $50,000.

The original iPhone was sealed in its original packaging and had never been opened, according to LCG Auctions.

Karen Green, the original owner of the phone, went on the talk show “The Doctor & The Diva” to have it appraised in 2019, where experts estimated it was worth about $5,000, largely due to it being in its original packaging and it being an 8GB model. Green said on the show that her friends bought her the phone, but she never bothered to open the package since she had just gotten a new phone.

“I didn’t want to get rid of my new phone, and I figured it’s an iPhone, so it will never go out of date,” she said in 2019.

Twenty-seven bids were placed on the iPhone between Feb. 2 and Sunday, with the first bid starting at $2,500.

Other first-generation iPhones have recently been auctioned off for about $35,000 and about $39,000 over the past year, according to LCG Auctions.

When the first-generation 8GB iPhone came out in 2007, it cost $599. Now, Apple has just released its latest version of the product in 2022, with the iPhone 14 costing between $799 and $1,199, according to Apple’s website.