If you kept an original iPhone in the box, it might be worth $30,000

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in iPhone
A 2007 iPhone sealed in its original packaging is up for auction, and is expected to sell for $30,000 or more.

Image credit: LCG Auctions
Image credit: LCG Auctions


LCG Auctions is holding its 2022 Fall Premier Auction until October 16. Among the many lots is an original iPhone sealed in its box.

As of Thursday afternoon, there are 14 bids with the original bid at $2,500. The current bid shows $8,633.

LCG lists the potential bid at $30,000 or more, but it's not clear what they base this figure on. Given the trend of the auction, this target is in reach and could get hit in the final hours of the auction as more bidders make their play.

The box is sealed in the original plastic wrap. It is undamaged and never had any packaging, store, or shipping labels attached.

The barcodes and regulatory information are visible and unfaded on the back of the box. It is an 8GB model that cost $599 when it was released.

Users can bid or watch the auction until October 16 at 5 pm EST. It can be viewed on the LCG Auctions website.

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 21
    chris_kalanchris_kalan Posts: 23member
    Buying the stock has yielded more than that!
    retrogustowatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 21
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,689member
    The $599 price was with a two or three year contract, so buying it without a contract, if you could do that, would have cost about $1000, which would be worth about $1500 in today's dollars, due to inflation. Taking these two factors into consideration, the value of the unopened box has increased by a factor of 20. That's still pretty good. The stock has jumped by a factor of 50 since then, although I don't think that accounts for inflation (if you accounted for inflation, the stock jump is probably closer to 33.)
    viclauyycwatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 21
    TS007TS007 Posts: 4member
    You couldn’t buy an original iPhone without a contract… 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 21
    HrebHreb Posts: 87member
    What?  Of course you did.  I walked into an Apple store in 2007 and bought an iPhone (8gb) and I never had a cell contract.  This was in the US of course -- I believe the only market with iPhones at that time.  In any case no one was spending $1000 on an original iPhone.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 21
    bestkeptsecretbestkeptsecret Posts: 4,276member
    I have the box, the shrink wrap and the phone. Unfortunately, the box is not sealed and the phone is used. It still works though, which is pretty cool!




    watto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 21
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,689member
    Hreb said:
    What?  Of course you did.  I walked into an Apple store in 2007 and bought an iPhone (8gb) and I never had a cell contract.  This was in the US of course -- I believe the only market with iPhones at that time.  In any case no one was spending $1000 on an original iPhone.
    Okay, you should go correct wikipedia, which says a contract was required to purchase the first generation iPhone. And you should learn how subsidies work: Apple gets paid by the carrier, an amount that the public never sees, which provides more money to Apple on top of the original purchase price.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 21
    muthuk_vanalingammuthuk_vanalingam Posts: 1,356member
    22july2013 said:
    Hreb said:
    What?  Of course you did.  I walked into an Apple store in 2007 and bought an iPhone (8gb) and I never had a cell contract.  This was in the US of course -- I believe the only market with iPhones at that time.  In any case no one was spending $1000 on an original iPhone.
    Okay, you should go correct wikipedia, which says a contract was required to purchase the first generation iPhone. And you should learn how subsidies work: Apple gets paid by the carrier, an amount that the public never sees, which provides more money to Apple on top of the original purchase price.
    Why should he go and correct wikipedia? It was your mistake, taking the information from wikipedia as Fact, isn't it? May be, you should stop using wikipedia as source of truth for making arguments in your posts.
  • Reply 8 of 21
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    As I understand it, you could buy an iPhone without signing a contract, but you had to activate it at home through iTunes, and would need to sign up to an AT&T plan in the USA.  You couldn't use it without a contract.

    It was similar in the UK, though replace AT&T with O2.
    muthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 21
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,663member
    chris_kalan said:
    Buying the stock has yielded more than that!
    No doubt.

    However, I think the main point of this article is to show that iPhones have now achieved “collectible” status, just like action figures, Barbies, original Hot Wheels cars, etc. Remember the 40 Year Old Virgin movie? Just like action figures or Barbies, finding an original iPhone still in the package, one that hasn’t been “played with,” is the fantasy acquisition for some fanatical collector out there in the auctionosphere. If squirreling away an original iPhone is the ultimate marshmallow test, I would have failed that test in most spectacular fashion. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 21
    auxioauxio Posts: 2,753member
    crowley said:
    As I understand it, you could buy an iPhone without signing a contract, but you had to activate it at home through iTunes, and would need to sign up to an AT&T plan in the USA.  You couldn't use it without a contract.

    It was similar in the UK, though replace AT&T with O2.
    Yes, it's absolutely true you could buy one without a contract. I had one shipped to me in Canada and worked with people on the internet to jailbreak it so that it could be activated and used on Wifi. Eventually they figured out how to SIM unlock it so that it could be used on other cellular networks. Just needed to make sure you had the right type of radio antenna for your cell network (GSM or CDMA).
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 21
    HrebHreb Posts: 87member
    22july2013 said:
    Hreb said:
    What?  Of course you did.  I walked into an Apple store in 2007 and bought an iPhone (8gb) and I never had a cell contract.  This was in the US of course -- I believe the only market with iPhones at that time.  In any case no one was spending $1000 on an original iPhone.
    Okay, you should go correct wikipedia, which says a contract was required to purchase the first generation iPhone. And you should learn how subsidies work: Apple gets paid by the carrier, an amount that the public never sees, which provides more money to Apple on top of the original purchase price.
    You are incorrectly quoting wikipedia, which says nothing about a contract being "required to purchase" a first generation iPhone.  Apple never required any such thing -- only AT&T did.  Apple was always perfectly happy to sell end users iPhones, to resell, or leave in a box for 15 years, or whatever they please.  

    For a significant number of users, the obvious answer was Jailbreak => SIM unlock => use iPhone without an AT&T contract.  Everything worked flawlessly except visual voicemail.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 21
    eriamjheriamjh Posts: 1,721member
    TS007 said:
    You couldn’t buy an original iPhone without a contract… 
    They didn’t have contracts… yet.  That didn’t happen until the 3G or 3GS.  

    They just were locked to AT&T.   
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 21
    Rogue01Rogue01 Posts: 173member
    22july2013 said:
    The $599 price was with a two or three year contract, so buying it without a contract, if you could do that, would have cost about $1000, which would be worth about $1500 in today's dollars, due to inflation. Taking these two factors into consideration, the value of the unopened box has increased by a factor of 20. That's still pretty good. The stock has jumped by a factor of 50 since then, although I don't think that accounts for inflation (if you accounted for inflation, the stock jump is probably closer to 33.)
    The $599 was the full price of the phone (8GB model, $499 4GB model), it was not subsidized with a two year contract.  The agreement Apple had with AT&T required the two year contract, there was no unlocked version of the phone.  So the phone would not have cost $1,000 at the time.  When the 3G came out, Apple and AT&T offered the subsidized price for $199 with the two year contract because Apple wanted to get the iPhone into everyone's hands for a lower price.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 21
    Rogue01Rogue01 Posts: 173member
    Hreb said:
    What?  Of course you did.  I walked into an Apple store in 2007 and bought an iPhone (8gb) and I never had a cell contract.  This was in the US of course -- I believe the only market with iPhones at that time.  In any case no one was spending $1000 on an original iPhone.
    That is incorrect.  AT&T was the exclusive carrier and they required a two year contract to use the phone.  So activating the phone with AT&T required the two year contract agreement.  But you are correct, you had to pay full price of $499 or $599 in addition to the two year agreement with AT&T.  It would not have had a higher price for an unlocked version, because Apple was not able to sell an unlocked version until the agreement with AT&T ended in 2010.
  • Reply 15 of 21
    Rogue01Rogue01 Posts: 173member
    No one would be dumb enough to pay $30,000 for an original iPhone.  The current bid at $8K is ridiculous and no guarantee the person making the bid would follow through.  With no labels on the shrink-wrap, who is to say the person didn't re-shrink the phone and then claim it has never been opened?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 21
    HrebHreb Posts: 87member
    Rogue01 said:
    Hreb said:
    What?  Of course you did.  I walked into an Apple store in 2007 and bought an iPhone (8gb) and I never had a cell contract.  This was in the US of course -- I believe the only market with iPhones at that time.  In any case no one was spending $1000 on an original iPhone.
    That is incorrect.  AT&T was the exclusive carrier and they required a two year contract to use the phone.  So activating the phone with AT&T required the two year contract agreement.  But you are correct, you had to pay full price of $499 or $599 in addition to the two year agreement with AT&T.  It would not have had a higher price for an unlocked version, because Apple was not able to sell an unlocked version until the agreement with AT&T ended in 2010.
    Or just skip the activation step entirely.  Like I did in 2007.  No requirement to pay AT&T for a contract.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 21
    HrebHreb Posts: 87member
    Rogue01 said:
    No one would be dumb enough to pay $30,000 for an original iPhone.  The current bid at $8K is ridiculous and no guarantee the person making the bid would follow through.  With no labels on the shrink-wrap, who is to say the person didn't re-shrink the phone and then claim it has never been opened?
    In both cases: LCG Auctions guarantees it.
  • Reply 18 of 21
    bbhbbh Posts: 134member
    I still have the original iPhone 16GB that I use as my "House Phone" keeping that phone number active with all calls forwarded to my iPhone 13Mini. I still have the original box and all that came with it as well. Offers ? 
  • Reply 19 of 21
    AppleZuluAppleZulu Posts: 2,131member
    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?
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 20 of 21
    timmilleatimmillea Posts: 251member
    Turn your mind to which Apple products you should buy now and keep in unopened, pristine condition for future collectors.

    My bet is on the MacBook Air M1 but you will have to wait a long time to find out.
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