15 years later, who knew a relic from the past could make you US$63,000 richer?

Remember the first-generation iPhone that was expected to sell for US$50,000 at the auction block? Well, it really raked in some serious bank, after all.

After the item went up for auction on Feb 2, the first-generation iPhone turned out to sell at the auction for US$63,356.40 - more than 100 times its original price. The originally sealed 2007 phone was sold on LCG Auctions but exceeded the US$50,000 estimate by more than US$13,000 , according to reports from CBS News and USA Today.

The bidding started at US$2,500 and after a total of 27 bids, the phone sold on Feb 19, according to reports.

The original owner of the phone, Karen Green, was gifted the phone in 2007 from her friends after landing a new job, but she never opened it because she didn’t want to get rid of her other phone. But at the time, Green already had three phone lines with Verizon, and iPhones would only use AT&T, USA Today reported. So, to dodge the termination fee, she “left the phone on a shelf for years, unopened and unused, wrapped in a pair of felt pajamas for extra measure”.

She had it appraised in 2019. Due to the phone being an 8GB - not 4GB - and was still in the original box, it was estimated to be worth US$5,000 , according to reports.

“I didn’t want to get rid of my phone, and I figured, ‘It’s an iPhone, so it will never go out of date’,”
Green said in a 2019 appearance on Doctor & The Diva.

But this isn’t the first time an old iPhone has been auctioned before because one sold for US$35,414 in August and another for US$39,339 in October through LCG.

So, you can’t blame Green for jumping at this once-in-a-lifetime chance at hitting it big after recently hearing of another original, unopened iPhone listing on eBay for US$10,000 .

“I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, I think I have the original’,” she said to the outlet. “I called my son and I was like, ‘Go get the phone and make sure it’s not opened.”

So the take away from this story: save your unopened old phones.

 - TNS