An original, sealed 4GB iPhone just sold at auction for $190,372.80, more than 381 times its original price of $499. That’s also three times the price of the next-highest sale of an original iPhone: a sealed first-edition 8GB iPhone that fetched $63,356 in February of this year.
This iPhone, sold on July 16 by LCG Auctions(opens in a new tab), likely fetched a premium thanks to two factors. The first is the rarity of the item itself; the auction house notes that the relatively minor price difference between the original 4GB iPhone ($499) and 8GB iPhone ($599) models meant more people opted for the doubled storage space.
The 4GB model was discontinued on September 5th, 2007, about two months after its June 29th release, making it a rarer find.
The second factor that likely contributed to the item’s eye-watering price is the unique origin story of this particular phone. “The consignor was part of the original engineering team at Apple when the iPhone first launched,” LCG Auctions notes.
