15 years have passed since the presentation and now the original iPhone from 2007 has become a real rarity. The vintage smartphone was sold at auction for almost $40,000.
Anyone who owns the first iPhone and was able to keep themselves from taking it out of the box is sitting on a veritable gold mine. A patient person sold the smartphone veteran for $39,339.60 (€39,906.29) at an online auction.
Original packaging and in excellent condition
According to the description on the website of online auctioneer “LCG Auctions” the example sold is a “first edition example in excellent condition”. Accordingly, all edges and surfaces should be undamaged and even the original welding foil should be intact. From the pictures you can see that the packaging actually appears to be like new.
First generation iPhone
The first generation iPhone was introduced by Steven Jobs himself on January 9, 2007. Time magazine called it “the invention of the year 2007”. The object auctioned here is the more expensive variant with 8 gigabytes (GB) of integrated memory, which went over the counter for 599 USD at the time. In Germany, the smartphone was only available in connection with a T-Mobile contract for 399 euros.
The first iPhone was by no means the first smartphone with a touch display, but it revolutionized the entire industry with its multi-touch finger input and smooth animations. The device had a 2-megapixel camera (without video function), a 3.7-inch capacitive touch screen and 16 pre-installed apps. One of them was the YouTube app with the iconic TV symbol back then. At the start there was no app store because Steve Jobs saw the future in web apps that only ran via the integrated browser. Only with the launch of the iPhone 3G and iPhone OS 2.0 a year later did Apple add what is probably the most important iPhone function.
A disappointment for the buyer?
Do you know Schrödinger’s cat? Put simply, this is a paradox where a cat in a box is both dead and alive as long as you don’t open the box. The iPhone in its original packaging is similar to this thought experiment. Because 15 years in the sealed pack is a long time. The built-in battery has probably long been discharged. Unfortunately, lithium-ion cells have a habit of bloating over extended periods of time without a charge.
So we hope that the lucky buyer won’t take the iPhone out of its original packaging – only to find the case pried open. It’s best to just leave it in the pack, it would be a waste of all the money.