An original 16-year-old iPhone has been sold at auction for $54,904, which is equivalent to around €51,500. The device was listed at auction house RR Auction, which specializes in electronics and remained up for bids for approximately a month. The device itself is still in its original sealed packaging, never having been put into operation. It was purchased by a former Apple employee when it went on sale on June 29, 2007.
The sale of this iPhone is not the first instance of an original iPhone reaching high sums at auction. In February, a device of the same kind, still in its original packaging and never used, sold for over $60,000, and holds the record for the highest amount ever paid for a first-generation iPhone.
While the hardware of the original 16-year-old iPhone is unexciting from today’s perspective, having only EDGE technology and a 3.5-inch screen, it is a collector’s item for Apple fans. The 32-bit processor was a Samsung ARM system running at 620MHz, but was limited to 412MHz, and the device had a PowerVR MBX Lite 3D GPU. The first iPhone had 128 MB of RAM, and the integrated flash memory could be equipped with 4, 8 or 16 GB. The $54,904 device was the 8 GB version.
The packaging of the iPhone in question displays a total of twelve icons on the screen. However, it does not include a 13th icon, the multimedia app iTunes, which was not added until later in 2007. This feature points towards the device being from the first iPhone 1 production run. The seller also included an original bag from AT&T (Cingular Wireless back then) and an information sheet with tariffs.
This auction sale of the original iPhone in mint condition shows a trend towards rising prices for such devices. In 2022, such devices could be obtained for $35,000, but today, the price has almost doubled. The auction also included other Apple memorabilia, such as an Apple-1 computer, posters, t-shirts, and even an old Apple carpet. An iPhone 11 signed by Tim Cook fetched almost $4,000 at the auction.
