Original iPhone fetches $63k - but there's a catch

Karen Green got an iPhone in 2007, but did something most people don't - she never opened it.

Her first-generation iPhone sold at auction for $63,356.40 (£51,900) on Sunday.

That blew away expectations the phone would go for $50,000. It's also more than 100 times the 8GB phone's original cost of $599.

But don't expect as much for your old iPhone, unless it's still in original packaging with the shrink wrap on.

"To discover an original, first-release model from 2007, still brand-new with its factory seal intact, is truly remarkable," Mark Montero of LCG Auctions told BBC News.

LCG Auctions handled the auction, which opened at $2,500 on 2 February and closed on Sunday after 27 bids.

Friends gave the 8GB phone as a gift to Ms Green back in 2007 when she got a new job, she said in a 2019 interview. Ms Green had just bought another phone, so she kept the gift without opening it.

"It's an iPhone," she thought, "so it'll never go out of date".

Fortunately for her, she was wrong. Her iPhone checks all the boxes high-end collectors look for, Mr Montero says: "relevance, rarity, and replaceability".

"Only brand-new, unopened, and first-generation, [iPhones] in mint condition are valuable," he says. Ms Green's story is "just icing on the cake".

Loyal Apple enthusiasts are known to pay good money for original products. Last year, an early Apple computer prototype from the 1970s sold for over $677,000.

First-generation iPhones, in similar pristine condition, have sold before, too - one for $35,414 in August and another for $39,339 in October.

Ms Green told Business Insider that she would have held onto the phone even longer to cash in an even larger sum, but she needed the money to fund her New Jersey business.