An unopened first generation iPhone manufactured in 2007 is set to sell for $50,000 at an auction on Thursday. Business Insider reported that Karen Green received the phone, which contains a 2 megapixel camera and 8GB of storage, as a gift when she got a new job.
At the time she had bought a new phone recently, and the smartphone was not compatible with her cellular network, so she opted not to put it to use. So Green put it on a shelf, where it remained "wrapped in a pair of felt pajamas" for years.
She could not believe her luck when she discovered that a first generation iPhone from 2007, the same year her gift was manufactured, had been sold for $39,339.60. She soon contacted LCG Auctions, which had handled the sale and was finding itself drowning in messages from people still in possession of old iPhones.
LCG Auctions founder, Mark Montero, told Business Insider: "We got calls from everybody but 99% of them didn’t have the same thing. But Karen had a really unique piece with a great story behind it. It was shocking because we had gotten so many duds.”
The company estimated over the phone that the price for the item would be "$50,000 and up". The auction will open on Thursday and end on February 19.
In a 2019 episode of TV show Doctor & the Diva, Green had the item valued at $5,000 by Lori Verderame, demonstrating the price has risen dramatically since. She said she has made the decision to sell the iPhone due to the financial pressures of running her struggling cosmetic tattoo studio in New Jersey.
Green told Business Insider: “If I could hold off on the phone for like another 10 years, I probably would. The only reason why I’m selling that phone is because I need to support this business.”
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.
