Original iPhone from 2007 auctioned for $63,356, topping prior sales

When we reviewed the first iPhone in 2007, one of our top complaints was that the phone was locked to AT&T. At the time, carrier lock-in discouraged Karen Green, a Verizon customer, from opening an iPhone she received as a gift. What was once a limiting inconvenience has led to Green making big bucks, as that unopened iPhone was recently auctioned for $63,356.40--10,477 percent more than the $599 it cost about 16 years ago.

The first iPhone's specs are laughable by today's standards and include 8GB of Samsung flash memory storage, a 2MP camera (decent for a camera phone at the time), and a 3.5-inch LCD screen.

As reported by Business Insider on Monday, Green sold the phone via LCG Auctions to fund her business after seeing how much other unopened first-generation iPhones had sold for recently. In August, one auctioned for $35,414, and in October, another unopened 2007 iPhone sold for $39,339.60. The auction for Green's phone, which closed on Sunday, greatly surpassed those sales.

Apparently, Green wasn't the only one who tried to resell an original iPhone after LCG Auction's October sale.

"We got calls from everybody, but 99 percent of them didn't have the same thing," LCG Auctions founder Mark Montero said, according to Business Insider.

The 2007 iPhone was the highest-value item in LCG Auction's 2023 Winter Premier Auction, followed by a Canadian Boba Fett action figure from 1978 that went for $22,206.