That’s the thing with collectibles, isn’t it? It’s worth whatever someone will pay for it. Being sealed in shrink wrap brings some quasi-religious fetishist fantasy that transports the buyer back to 2007 and imbues the object with some enhanced wisdom from the original owner who was willing to blow $600 on a bet that this item was indeed the Next Big Thing and is an incorruptible relic that should be memorialized thusly and forever in shrink wrap.
Whoever buys it should probably require a CT scan of the box before their check clears. Then again, it’s the idea that holds value, so maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s just filler material in there, precisely matched to the weight of an original iPhone, so long as nobody ever checks or knows. It could be an original iPhone, and that’s good enough. The buyer doesn’t have to believe that it’s magical, just that someone else down the line with even more money will believe that it’s magical.
Meanwhile, the buyer could recoup their cost by selling a limited number of NFTs, invested with The Spirit of Originalness of The Box That Contains Schrödinger’s iPhone.
OK, that’s a plan. How do I bid on this thing?
I see your point. You dislike the idea of attributing "magicalness" to norma/historical objects. I tend to agree with you there. Yet at the same time you say, "It's worth whatever someone will pay for it." I'm not sure how you reconcile these two opposing ideas. If you sincerely believe the latter, then why gripe about the former?
If I was able to document that a pencil was used by Einstein to prove general relativity, I'd probably pay $1000 for it, but only with the intention to sell it later for ten times my investment. The only thing "magical" about that pencil is its ability to get people to pay money for it.
Ultimately it boils down to personal freedom and free enterprise. I will never grip about those ideals. I appreciate your comment about NFTs, and I advise you to go for it. NFTs are an art form and perfectly legal in any free economy, even if they are as dubious as a pyramid scheme.
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If I was able to document that a pencil was used by Einstein to prove general relativity, I'd probably pay $1000 for it, but only with the intention to sell it later for ten times my investment. The only thing "magical" about that pencil is its ability to get people to pay money for it.
Ultimately it boils down to personal freedom and free enterprise. I will never grip about those ideals. I appreciate your comment about NFTs, and I advise you to go for it. NFTs are an art form and perfectly legal in any free economy, even if they are as dubious as a pyramid scheme.