A first-generation iPhone sold at auction for $190,373, nearly 380 times the original price of $499 it was in 2007 when the revolutionary device went on sale.
LCG Auctions, which ran Sunday’s auction, said the 4GB iPhone was 20 times rarer than the 8GB model released at the same time and fetched $599. That’s largely because the 4GB model was discontinued two months after its launch due to consumer preference for the model with more memory.
“A new record was set on Sunday night,” said Mark Montero, founder of LCG Auctions. “We are happy to be a part of this fantastic record sale.”
It is the third original iPhone to sell for a record price at auction in the past year. An 8GB model sold for $63,356 in February, and another 8GB model went for $39,340 in October 2022. All phones came factory-sealed in their original packaging.
The iPhone is one of the most successful electronic products in the world and helped make Apple the first public company with a market value of $3 trillion. The Cupertino, California-based company reached that milestone 16 years after the first iPhone models began selling.
