In 2007, Karen Green received a first-generation iPhone as a gift, but never opened it – and this year, sixteen years later, she decided to auction the device. In Sunday’s auction on the LCG Auctions server, the box hiding the phone, the capabilities of which are very backward by today’s standards, was auctioned for 63,356 dollars, equivalent to 1.4 million crowns. The fact that the woman had an electronic gold brick lying in her closet at home was only realized years later.
Before the start of the auction, it was suggested that the price of the first iPhone could slightly exceed one million crowns. But it turned out that the estimates were quite sober, because in reality the price attacked almost a million and a half. The amount thus exceeded the original price of the smartphone, which Steve Jobs introduced in January 2007, more than a hundred times. At that time, its eight-gig version cost $599, i.e. thirteen thousand crowns.
Karen Green won the jackpot rather by chance. The box, which according to Jobs represented a reinvented telephone, was given to him by friends as a gift for a new job, informs server Business Insider. But she put it aside, specifically in the closet, where she wrapped it in pajamas. She just got another new phone. So, to her credit, she didn’t decide to jump on the wave of consumerism.
In addition, Green had a mobile plan with the operator Verizon, and the iPhone was then only compatible with the operator AT&T. She wanted to avoid paying for a transfer to a new service provider and at the same time she didn’t want to lose her phone number. One representative of the mobile phone revolution began to wait for his moment of glory.
Green found out that the phone’s price had risen significantly in 2012 when she read that its unboxed first version was sold on eBay for ten thousand dollars. She checked to see if the phone hiding between her pajamas was still unwrapped. And when she found out that it was, she told herself that she would wait a few more years before selling it.
In 2019, she made it to the TV show Doctor & the Diva, where they estimated its price at five thousand dollars. Last October, however, she learned that the first version of the unboxed iPhone was auctioned for less than forty thousand dollars – just on the online auction house LCG. She decided to contact his representative and try her luck.
“A lot of people call us, but 99 percent of them have nothing of value. But Karen owned a truly special piece that also had a great story behind it. It was quite a shock to us, as we are usually contacted by complete lunatics.” stated for Business Insider LCG Auctions founder Mark Montero.
The auction started on February 2nd at $2,500, i.e. less than sixty thousand crowns – and ended on February 17th at $63,356. Green said she would wait another ten years to sell if she could. But she needed money to open her own beauty studio.
At the same time, auctions of items associated with Apple are nothing exceptional in the world. Whether it is the legendary Apple I computer, which was auctioned the year before last for more than twelve million crowns, employee sneakers, Jobs’ slippers or perhaps a signed diskette from the former boss himself.
