HomeNewsFirst-gen iPhone sold at auction for a whopping $101,000!

First-gen iPhone sold at auction for a whopping $101,000!

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An original first-generation iPhone from 2007 sold at auction Sunday for more than 100 times its original sale price. LCG Auctions

A factory sealed, first-generation iPhone sold at auction for a whopping $63,356.40  (NZ$101,000) – more than 100 times its original price – after a woman was gifted the phone in 2007, but never opened it because she didn’t want to get rid of her other phone.

The 2007 phone, still sealed in its box, was consigned by the owner and sold on LCG Auctions after bidding closed on Sunday.

In all, 27 people bid for the phone that had been expected to sell for $50,000.

The item went up for auction on Feb. 2.

Karen Green, the phone’s original owner according to the listing, had it appraised in 2019. Because it was an 8GB  – not 4GB – and was still in the original box, it was estimated to be worth $5,000.

In 2007, the phone came out and, that summer, Green was gifted the phone when she got a management job at PetSmart, according to Business Insider.

At the time, Green already had three phone lines with Verizon, and iPhones would only use AT&T, the outlet reported. To avoid a pricey termination fee, she “left the phone on a shelf for years, unopened and unused, wrapped in a pair of felt pajamas for extra measure.”

“I didn’t want to get rid of my new phone,” Green said in a 2019 appearance on “Doctor & The Diva.”

When Green recently heard of another original, unopened iPhone listing on eBay for $10,000, something sparked.

“I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, I think I have the original,'” she told the outlet. “I called my son and I was like, ‘Go get the phone and make sure it’s not opened.”

Now, 15 years later, she’s $63,000 richer.