Apple
A sealed-in-box first-generation iPhone has been auctioned for an unbelievable amount
Apple’s first-ever phone has been bought at an auction for over $150,000 US Dollars, with it being in mint condition after remaining sealed for decades.
When you go to a store you can see the value of things. This is most obvious, as is the fact that some things lose value over time. This happens above all to perishable items, but there are others that can be considered a collector’s item, even though it can be expensive today. It all depends on the item and its condition, like this first-generation iPhone that has sold for as high as six figures.
If you have a sealed iPhone 1 at home, this is what you can start asking for it
Collecting is a long-term investment method. What today has a price, tomorrow may have a higher one, but that depends a lot on the time that has passed since its release and what it means for the rest of the people interested in that item. This is where practices such as grading have emerged, a way of assessing the state of an object before its convenient sealing in a methacrylate box with the consequent certification of authenticity and assessment of its state at the time of said analysis.
For this reason, more than one person has decided not only to put up old objects for sale that they have been keeping for years without giving them any use, but to try and earn more money than was spent on them. And this is what has been achieved at LCG Auction with a rare model of the Apple phone: a first-generation iPhone that was only 4GB of storage. The mobile device was only available for a few months before doubling its internal space, which, today, would not be used to store more than photos.
The auction began at what appears to be a timid $10,000, and we say so not precisely because at its time of release, it had a cost of $599 dollars, but because it has multiplied its value more than ten times at auction to reach more than $158,000. The description read that it was “an extremely rare, factory-sealed, first-release 4GB model in exceptional condition” and called for the bid by claiming that collectors and investors would be hard-pressed to find a “superior example.”.