First-Generation iPhone Brings 100 Times Its 2007 Price

When Karen Green got a new job in 2007, her friends gave her a congratulatory iPhone. She had just gotten a new phone, so she never opened the gift. "I didn't want to get rid of my phone, and I figured, 'It's an iPhone, so it will never go out of date," she said. Green had the phone appraised in 2019 for $5,000—an amount buoyed by the facts that it was an 8GB phone, as opposed to 4GB, and was still packaged in its original box, CBS News reports. On Sunday, Green's iPhone, which probably cost her friends $499 to $599, brought $63,356.40 at auction—more than 100 times the asking price when Steve Jobs introduced the gadget at MacWorld in 2007.

The bidding started at $2,500, according to LCG Auctions, which was expecting the phone to bring around $50,000. First-generation iPhones have gone for $35,000 to $39,000 recently, per the Hill. There were 27 bidders for Green's phone. Green told Business Insider that she had planned to keep the phone for another decade, but she opened a cosmetic tattoo studio in New Jersey last year. "The only reason why I am selling that phone is because I need to support this business," she said. Apple's website lists the iPhone 14, the latest version, at $799 to $1,199. (More iPhone stories.)