“Holy Grail” iPhone Sets Sale Record

There’s a new record price for an iPhone selling at auction. An original iPhone 4GB from 2007 sold for $190,372 at the LCG Auctions 2023 Summer Premier auction, smashing the old record of $63,000 for an 8GB model sold by the same auction house earlier this year. Both iPhone models were released on June 29, 2007. The 4GB phone cost $499 and was discontinued in 2008, making it especially rare; the 8G phone retailed for $599, and consumers apparently thought the extra $100 was a small price to pay for twice as much storage. Apple stopped supporting the iPhone 4GB in 2010. The record-setting iPhone is factory-sealed in its original black box with a picture of an iPhone showing 12 icons. The consignor was on the Apple engineering team when the phone was launched.

Since the original iPhone was launched, Apple has released at least one new model a year. There have been 38 models total, spanning 16 generations. The current generation (as of this writing) is the iPhone 14. Each new model brings new features like larger screens, stronger construction, higher resolution screens, improved cameras and faster connectivity. Compared to these later models, the iPhone 4GB seems like a throwback to an earlier time – all of 16 years, eons ago in tech years. All of which makes the iPhone 4GB seem almost quaint, even if at the time the phone was revolutionary, transforming phones, the Internet, and the image of Apple itself. While the newest iPhone models are desirable as flashy new toys or status symbols, this one represents something more: a turning point in technological history.