back to article Someone just blew over $190k on a 4GB first-gen iPhone

OK, going by previous auctions of retro Apple hardware, it's clear that there are fanbois out there benefiting from an infinite money glitch or something – but this is getting ridiculous. On Sunday, an original 4GB iPhone was sold by Louisiana-based LCG Auctions for $190,372.80 – almost 382 times the RRP of $499 when it was …

  1. tmTM

    A fool and their money

    You know the rest............

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A fool and their money

      buys Apple?

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: A fool and their money

        >buys Apple?

        If you had bought Apple in 2007 ,with a share price around $3, you would only have made about 65X your money to today

      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: A fool and their money

        buys Apple?

        Yeah because it's terrible to buy a phone that isn't headed to landfill 3 years after you bought it..

        (Yes, Apple and their products have flaws but at least, with some notable exceptions, they do try to keep the stuff going as long as possible. *That's* why they cost more)

        1. Chronos

          Re: A fool and their money

          So the deliberate slowdown of older models, the lock-in for replacement parts and the iPhone 4's stupid "you're holding it wrong" didn't happen then? Not saying you're wrong about the landfill problem but please let's have some perspective here as Apple have actively encouraged some of their products to the wheelybin. No vendor loves you, trust me on this, unless you're a shareholder.

          1. ThomH Silver badge

            Re: A fool and their money

            "the deliberate slowdown of older models" is grossly misrepresenting the issue.

            Like every other phone, iPhones don't go into burst mode when the battery has decayed. Because there isn't enough power; this is a physical constraint, completely disjoint from the age of the phone. It depends entirely on when you last got the battery replaced.

            Apple got sued — rightly — because customers then came into Apple shops and said to Apple employees "my phone has slowed down, what can I do?" and instead of saying "pay £89 for a new battery (or sneak off to get it done for a much more reasonable price elsewhere)", Apple employees said "pay £799 for a new phone, only available from us".

            So Apple employees failed to recommend a cheap solution that's also available from third parties, instead indicating that the only option was expensive and available from Apple only.

            Noted before the inevitable responses: declining to accept some absurd misrepresentation of the very negative thing a company did does not make one a bought fool.

            1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

              Re: A fool and their money

              looks like you fended those reponses off well!

            2. Chronos

              Re: A fool and their money

              https://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/latest_abuse_apple_deliberately_slowing_iphone_performance

              I'll just leave this here, no particular reason.

    2. simonlb Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: A fool and their money

      It isn't crypto, so will still retain some tangible value as it isn't part of a Ponzi scheme.

    3. rob 47

      Re: A fool and their money

      Not really. It's gone up in price massively more than most other investments, might do the same in the next 15 years - sounds like a pretty neat place to put your cash.

    4. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: A fool and their money

      Call them a fool, this 190K is probably loose change that they won't notice gone. They will probably make a decent return on it too, if they choose.

      What a fool!

  2. Martin Summers

    I'd love to know if there was actually an iPhone in there. How can they be sure unless they X-Ray it?

    So now this box is going to sit there and be admired for the rest of time or until the owner croaks or it is sold again. What a complete waste of money for anyone sane.

    1. pdh

      Might actually make some sense as an investment, as long as the Greater Fool machinery continues to operate...

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        ...as long as the Great Fool machinery continues to operate"

        And there's the risk with collecting or even just storing, anything as a potential future investment. The object may or may not ever become collectable or historic and even if it does, it might only be for the duration of a particular generation or two who have the nostalgia. And choosing exactly what to keep/store is purely a lottery anyway. Even the cheapest bit of tat might well be a valuable collectors item in 40-50 years because no one sane would ever want to keep that cheap bit of tat, so you get rarity IF there's a market.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Nobody's going to open it because they run the risk of discovering the screen and/or back's been pushed out due to the swollen battery and it'll end up being worth about a tenner.

      All that's going to happen, as you say, is the sealed box is going to get sold on to the next mug.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        The battery is almost certainly going to be screwed anyway since Li batteries really really don't like being fully discharged and left that way for years. I don't know what the rule were back then, or if any rules applied in the US, but generally these days, Li batteries or items containing them are only supposed to be shipped with a limited charge state to minimise the chances of battery fires but even if fully charged, I'd expect it to have drained to zero over the last 16 or so years.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          So it's probably worth opening to remove the battery if it's going to become a heritage item

          Otherwise one day you're going to open your bank deposit box and discover a charred block of melted plastic

          1. doublelayer Silver badge

            Probably not, because if it's been discharged this long, there isn't much potential energy left to make that happen. Charging a battery adds plenty of potential energy which can make a bloated battery into a small fire, but if it hasn't become damaged to the point of ignition now, it's likely not to without a new source of energy. If it's plugged in, no guarantees of anything. Given the loss in value that cracking it open would bring, it's probably not worth it to collectors.

          2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            You need to watch some YouTube videos of people putting nails through batteries. Fully charge? Fire!!!. Only partially charged? Damp sqiub, little, if any smoke

        2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

          16 years? I bought a Li-Ion powered tool, and left it on the shelf for 2 years, and when I eventually came to use it, the battery was totally flat and would not charge at all.

          Cautionary tale I guess. Periodically re-charge all your battery tools, even if you've not used them.

      2. Lord of Cheese

        Schrodinger's iPhone?

  3. Michael Strorm Silver badge

    > First-gen iPhones are sought-after items at auctions, but this one blows the others out of the water.

    Ah, so *that's* why it's so valuable then- it's one of the rare models with an integrated bazooka.

  4. Howard Sway Silver badge

    Price sounds ridiculous....

    Until you realise we live in a world where people have been spending similar sums on "owning" crappy jpeg pictures of cartoon monkeys because it says so on a blockchain.

    In reality it's no more valuable than an unopened 1970s box of cornflakes, and has as much use i.e. none. It's just a shame that the people who sustain this sort of market can''t think of a more useful way to put their money to work.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Price sounds ridiculous....

      It's just a shame that the people who sustain this sort of market can''t think of a more useful way to put their money to work.

      They probably do. This is just loose change to them.

    2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: Price sounds ridiculous....

      In reality it's no more valuable than an unopened 1970s box of cornflakes

      My wife still has a Timothy White's [1] branded box of cotton-wool balls that her gran bought in the late 1960's (price on it is in shillings and pence)

      And I have an almost mint iPhone 3G sat in a drawer somewhere. With an almost-mint iPhone 4, and almost-mint OnePlus 2 etc etc etc. And an almost-mint Nokia Communicator and Apple Newton.

      Someday I'll go through all my device tat (and the 50 or so paper ream boxes of paperback sci-fi novels - mostly in very good condition as I don't dogear or break the spines) and find an appropriate tat bazzaar to sell it on.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don’t think they understand

    I don’t think they understand what scarcity means

    This “scarce” model of iPhone could easily be manufactured again, therefore it is not scarce

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: I don’t think they understand

      I don't agree with your definition of scarcity. It could be manufactured again, but two factors apply. First, if it did, it would be the 2023 run of the devices, not the original run, which collectors care a lot about. Second, it's not going to be made again. Let's say that I wasn't a collector and actually wanted a device like this because I have something that requires one. There's no chance that Apple, hearing my situation, would go make some more for me. I would have to find one that already exists and try to get it to work, and there aren't many available for me. They are scarce because I can't make one when I want one and the existing supply is low. That doesn't make them valuable; a lot of scarce things are unwanted, and this thing has no useful purpose other than a collection item, but it is still scarce.

      The same applies to a bunch of old bits of technology. Not that they're all of interest to collectors, but if you have a computer from 1992 attached to some expensive equipment, not that rare a situation, and part of it breaks, you may find yourself wanting a replacement part. Those things could be manufactured again. Sure, not all the components on the boards are still made, but those too could be re-manufactured if you can get access to the designs, and probably quite cheaply because the cutting edge manufacturing methods of 1992 are now the basic available to everyone methods. In fact, you might find that some of them are cheaper to redo on cheap modern manufacturing methods because the ones in use are so old that they're no longer used today. Yet, doing that will prove so difficult in practice that nobody will do it. Instead, you'll have to scavenge for original, 1990s-made versions of those parts in order to get that machine running again, and they'll be scarce indeed.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: I don’t think they understand

        You can make a machine like a C64 or a Spectrum out of all-modern hardware, you need to order different parts from different suppliers but it's possible. FPGA systems like the MiSTer will reproduce an ST or an Amiga about as accurately as can be done. On original or modern hardware, these computers still work.

        An iPhone will never work, the online services it connects to just don't work any more and 2G is decommissioned in many countries and will soon be decommissioned in the rest. If you could somehow fix either of these problems then it wouldn't be an iPhone either.

        Whereas you can actually use older hardware and derive some value from it that way, you can't use newer hardware as it has to connect to online services which manufacturers have no interest in maintaining using protocols which are out of date. An second-hand iPhone has no real value now, it's just tulip mania.

    2. Annihilator

      Re: I don’t think they understand

      I suspect it would cost more than $190k to recommission the fab plants that created such an iPhone and reactivate the supply chains, so arguably this is a bargain from that perspective. And to be clear, it still wouldn't be an original iPhone.

      Most rare items could easily be manufactured again. Star Wars toys, original Apple 1s, stamps, coins, a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta. It wouldn't make the collections out there any more or less valuable.

      1. LybsterRoy Silver badge

        Re: I don’t think they understand

        -- It wouldn't make the collections out there any more or less valuable. --

        I wonder when the word value came to mean whatever you can get a mug to pay for it? Value is always context sensitive. The value of the first-gen iPhone if stuck in the middle of a desert looking for your next glass of water would be approximately zero. What worries me is the context we're living in to apply such distorted value to what are essentially worthless objects.

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          Re: I don’t think they understand

          That became one use of "value" as soon as money became generally accepted, meaning that you could sell something to someone and use that money to buy the things you needed. If that disappears, such as your desert scenario, then it has lost a lot of value. The word's been consistently used in multiple forms, meaning either a specific amount of value to you, but not necessarily anyone else, and a more general level of value, often a shortened form of "market value". It's how the economy has worked for centuries.

    3. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: I don’t think they understand

      This “scarce” model of iPhone could easily be manufactured again, therefore it is not scarce

      In the world of book collecting there is such a thing as a "first edition". Reprints just don't cut it.

  6. Plest Silver badge
    Facepalm

    As my Dad said throughout my childhood...

    .."Hey, it's your money son!". Actually I'm 52 and he still says it but now I'm older and wiser I get the more subtle version, "I'm not telling you what to spend your money on.".

    I guess what people spend their money on is their business but something about this just sums up how empty and vacuous our whole society is these days. Worshipping at the feet of mobile phone technology and here in this case, something akin to the "Arc of the Covenant" in mobile phone cricles. What a sad little species we are.

  7. Red Ted
    FAIL

    What strikes us as odd...

    ...is that 2007 doesn't even feel that long ago

    I am afraid that is just a sign of you getting old!

    The "Year 2000" used to seem *so* futuristic!

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: What strikes us as odd...

      Exactly! You know you are getting old when you visit a museum and see exhibits you remember you or your family owning when young[er] :-)

      The latest exhibit at Beamish Open Air Museum is the "1950's town" containing many exhibits that were very much still around into the 60's and later which I clearly remember (Well, from late 60's anyway, what with only being born at the start of the 60's!)

      1. Nifty

        Re: What strikes us as odd...

        "You know you are getting old when you visit a museum and see exhibits you remember you or your family owning"

        I'd probably recognise some appliances I'm still using now :-)

      2. that one in the corner Silver badge

        Re: What strikes us as odd...

        Thanks, you've reminded us we really need to visit again as we've not yet seen the 1950s town (well, SWMBO visited before the whole 1950s town was in place, as our local history group worked with Beamish on some of the background materials).

        Although not sure about chips in a cone: round our way (admittedly down on the south coast) in the 60s & 70s "do you want it open?" meant you just didn't get the outer layer of newspaper, it was still a sort of squishy rectangle you held in one hand or, less painfully (hot'n'fresh), you put on the park bench seat or plonked down on the shingle beach (none of your namby pamby sand here). Guess I'll just have to force myself to give them a try (purely for research and the historic experience, you understand).

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: What strikes us as odd...

          "Although not sure about chips in a cone:"

          Yes, back in the day that was common. A triangular shaped grease-proof "bag" that was sort of a cone when filled with chips and the shop staff knew how to fold the paper/newspaper to "wrap" it so little hands could easily hold the package to eat from the top, often leaving a small "drink" of about half inch to an inch of vinegar in the bottom. I've not seen that for many many years other than some seaside places that have specially made cardboard cone vaguely reminiscent of the old days, often printed on the outside to look a little like newspaper.

      3. Handel was a crank

        Re: What strikes us as odd...

        About ten years ago I visited the air museum near York. There were four aircraft in their collection that I had worked on back when I was in avionics. (Is there a Zimmer frame icon?)

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: What strikes us as odd...

      >..is that 2007 doesn't even feel that long ago

      Well 2007 was only a couple of years ago

      The 90s were only 10years ago and the 80s were only 20 years ago

      1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: What strikes us as odd...

        the 80s were only 20 years ago

        Cool! That makes me 38 and not 58!

        Now, how about reverting the the state of my health 20 years ago hmm? No arthritis, no diabetes and no heart attack!

        Where do I sign?

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: What strikes us as odd...

          >Cool! That makes me 38 and not 58!

          Dark Side was 50 this year and Nevermind was more than 30 years ago

          1. upsidedowncreature

            Re: What strikes us as odd...

            It really hit home when Blue Monday turned 40 a few months ago.

    3. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: What strikes us as odd...

      The "Year 2000" used to seem *so* futuristic!

      And reasonably well-paying as a techie contractor.

      Afterwards? Not so much - hordes of barely-trained contractors who thought that the experience they got applying manufacturer patches and re-running the y2k test suites (created by people like me) made them into fully-rounded contractors.

      Contract rates went from £40/ph to about £15/ph - at which point going permie on a good wage [1] was financially far more advantageous than staying as EKS.

      [1] Blagged my way into a Solaris/NIS/Network sysadmin job despite *technically* never having done any of them before.

  8. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    I would have thought a "Holy Grail" iPhone would have to be one with provenance showing that it was the actual one brandished by Steve Jobs at a launch ceremony.

    1. JimboSmith

      You mean the one that had the display fixed so it only ever showed maximum signal, only worked without crashing if you follow a preordained sequence of actions and didn’t deviate from that? That phone?

      And before all the downvotes from Apple fans that’s actually true. Please read the relevant pages in Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution to gain further insight from people involved. AT&T also installed mobile base stations around Moscone to provide guaranteed signal.

      1. Annihilator

        I don't think anyone would doubt that. It was a sales pitch and demo, and remember it was beaming live to the large screens behind him, before iPhones were capable of doing that (from memory anyway). We've seen what happens when you trust "live" kit:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeUyxjLhAxU

      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        only worked without crashing if you follow a preordained sequence of actions and didn’t deviate from that?

        Sounds like my technique in my programming class - we had to write (in Pascal) a stock management system. The variant of Pascal I was using (on a BBC Model B) didn't do in-place updating - if you wanted to update a record you had to copy the data up to the record you wanted to update, read the record, update it in RAM then write it to disc, followed by the rest of the file.

        My first cut *sort* of worked by, after a few goes, would corrupt the data file.

        So I recoded it as in semi-interactive demo that prompted the user to press certain keys which would trigger a set of graphics, then propmt for the next key-press.

        The lecturer was reasonably impressed -- even though I hadn't *actually* fulfilled the brief (and I'd reasoned why toolset selection was important in my response) I'd been sufficiently inventive that he was prepared to pass my submission (in fact, gave me an 80% score).

        That was one of the few classes I enjoyed in my HND (failed) - the rest (comms theory and technology) was bearable because the lecturer was really good. Analogue and digital electorics however I loathed with every fibre of my being - we had 2 lectureres - one near to retirement that would just come in, mumble at us for an hour, throw some paperwork on the front bench and then walk out. The other was newly-qualified, only a few years older than us and more interested in trying to bed the few girls in the class.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          So what you learned was that a fancy demo was more important than the software actually meeting the spec - and as a result you are now a billionaire ?

        2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

          Pascal for the BBC micro.

          Um. I think you needed to read the manual. The BBC Micro OS (even 0.90) was perfectly capable of doing updates to the middle of files on DFS, NFS and all later filesystems, and if it was Acornsoft Pascal (that came in two ROMs), it was a full ISO validated Pascal, and you had full access to all of the file options that the BBC OS and filesystems provided.

          It's been such a long time since I looked at Pascal on the BBC micro that I would have to drag down my copy of the Acornsoft Pascal guide to check the syntax, but I see no reason why it could not be done.

          Strict standards compliant Pascal was a very limited language. It was always intended to be. There was strict typing, and the I/O you could do was limited, mainly to fixed-length records, and you had to jump through hoops in order to do anything like direct memory access or type casting between different data types (Pascal has pointers, but they are vastly different to what something like 'C' provides). But this was by design, because it was really a teaching language, and intended to teach good programming practices before students learned poor ones, and was meant to be a stepping stone to other languages. The people who wrote the extended Pascals did not really understand the purpose of the language.

  9. karlkarl Silver badge

    I don't think it would get through the activation step anymore during initial setup.

    Last I heard, Apple only supports iPhone 3 onwards via their activation / DRM server.

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      I wonder if it even had a need for remote activation at that point. I don't know if they had any anti-theft systems on the first model, which is the primary reason they do online activation these days. In fact, you can activate a modern iPhone without an internet connection as long as it's been properly reset and doesn't still have an activation lock from the last user (whether or not that last user was you).

      1. karlkarl Silver badge

        > In fact, you can activate a modern iPhone without an internet connection as long as it's been properly reset and doesn't still have an activation lock from the last user

        Unfortunately not; it always needs to connect to Apple's servers for *some* purpose (I suspect DRM).

        They disguise it as anti-theft or (in newer Ventura macOS) firmware fetches but they are really just excuses for Apple to enforce planned obsolescence if needed.

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          I don't know when that became the case, because I was able to successfully activate an iPhone 5S without an internet connection about three years ago. That may no longer be possible, and it might not even have been possible had that device been running the latest version of IOS available for it, but at the time, I was not prevented from doing it.

          1. gnasher729 Silver badge

            I remember buying a used iPhone to be used as a cheap iPod, and I couldn’t activate it until I took a card from another phone. Just for activation, after that it wasn’t needed.

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. DS999 Silver badge

    It is no different than original 70s Star Wars collectibles or whatever

    Its value is being there at the start of something big that changed the world, there are always collectors for that sort of thing. The people who collect that sort of stuff generally don't do it hoping to turn a profit.

    I used to collect coins/stamps when I was a kid. I still have those collections on a high shelf in a closet, because I figure maybe someday when I'm old and not able to get around as much I might revisit those hobbies. I'm sure I could sell it all for thousands of dollars, but unless I came upon hard times I don't need the money (nor do I want to spend the time going through it and making sure I get a decent price)

  12. fromxyzzy

    That battery may or may not have burst

    So it's Schrodinger's iPhone since nobody sane would open it up to destroy the value?

    1. that one in the corner Silver badge

      Re: That battery may or may not have burst

      Part of the value comes from the thrill, the Russian Roulette feel that makes the jaded rich feel alive, at least for a moment[1]: am I going to hold onto it for too long, will my mansion be the one that burns when the battery finally goes up?

      [1] according to the documentaries, such as those with that charming Mr Bond chappie.

  13. chivo243 Silver badge
    Trollface

    3GS or 4 then?

    I'll be hanging on to my iPhone 5, it may be worth more than I paid for it... Zero, it was a gift from a colleague that always upgraded when the carrier offered them a better plan to purchase.

    Not everyone who use Apple gear pays through the nose for it!

  14. LateAgain

    Historical iPhone

    That first iPhone is the device that broke us away from the network insistence on controlling the hardware connecting to "their" network.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Historical iPhone

      Yes people don't give Apple enough credit for this. Steve Jobs is probably the only person who could have possibly convinced a major carrier to give up that control, and even then only due to the huge success of iPod and the hype that had built over the rumored Apple phone.

      Perhaps the EU would have eventually saved people in Europe from that carrier control, but here in the US we'd still be stuck using the phones our carriers offered, with whatever features they grudgingly decided to enable!

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Historical iPhone

        >Perhaps the EU would have eventually saved people in Europe from that carrier control,

        But the phones wouldn't have internet because the telcos would also have been the national post offices who would have worried that email was going to reduce demand for letters and so job losses

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: Historical iPhone

          I agree they definitely wouldn't have allowed stuff like Whatsapp or Skype that can send messages or make calls that carriers can't bill for.

    2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Re: Historical iPhone @LateAgain

      I don't agree that it was the first phone that was independent of a network.

      I bought a Palm Treo 650 before the iPhone was a thing, and even though it was an Orange branded device, it was able to take SIMs from different networks (the lock in was a contractual one, not a technical one).

      But you have to admit that, before devices like the iPhone, Palm Treo's, Nokia Communicators et. al. there was actually little reason to take your handset with you when you switched phone providers. It's only when these high-value phones came along that people wanted to take their handset with them.

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. Anonymous Anti-ANC South African Coward Silver badge
    Devil

    The BOFH, his Boss and the iThing

    I would love a BOFH episode where Simon sells some iThing tat to the Boss for an exorbitant price...

    Should be good for a chuckle or two...

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: The BOFH, his Boss and the iThing

      How about this one, although the Apple products involved aren't iThings. The comments on the article seem more in line with the boss than with the BOFH, though. I guess there are more people interested in IT antiquity than I'd expect.

  17. Winkypop Silver badge
    Facepalm

    In other cult NEWS today

    Steve Jobs' worn-out Birkenstocks sell for $218,000 at auction

    https://www.npr.org/2022/11/15/1136637908/steve-jobs-auction-sandals-birkenstocks-apple

  18. Kane
    Facepalm

    Absolutely Insane

    See title

  19. 3arn0wl

    If I had that sort of money...

    ... I'd ask Shift to make me a 6" tablet using the 16GB Sipeed Lichee SoM, and then I'd get UBports to flash Lomiri on Debian onto it.

    At least that would be funding some useful RnD too.

  20. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

    Provenance

    We're guessing no one wants to drop six figures on our scratched-up 3GS or 4 then?

    If there is irrefutable evidence that the said device was dropped down the dunny by the man himself, and it is still covered in holy excrement, which has been DNA matched to him, then, in all probability, you'll be able to retire on the sale proceeds

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