Open up those crusty junk drawers and start scrounging around for your old Apple products, girls, ‘cos it looks like you might be sitting on a fortune. Catch me praying that my old iPhone or green iPod Nano lifts me from the clutches of debt (I’m delusional).
A discontinued iPhone is making headlines this week after it sold at an auction for US$190,000 (AU$278,000). That’s a lot of Chicken Nuggets from McDonald’s.
But don’t get yourself too excited (unless you keep your iPhones in mint condition), ‘cos the phone in question isn’t exactly common.
It was a 4GB factory-sealed first-release iPhone from 2007 that was never opened or activated. In fact, the box was described as being in “virtually flawless” condition.
I could never keep something like that in such a perfect state. I just know it would be dented before I even got home from the store.
The 4GB version of the first iPhone is considered to be rarer than the 8GB, which was available for sale at the same time as its inferior sibling. For obvious reasons it was the more popular of the two, forcing the 4GB version to stop being produced in a short amount of time.
“The original 4GB model is considered a ‘Holy Grail’ among iPhone collectors,” LCG Auctions (which sold the phone) wrote on its site.
“Its extreme scarcity is directly related to its limited production.
“The consignor was part of the original engineering team at Apple when the iPhone first launched.
“Collectors and investors would be hard-pressed to find a superior example.”
Don’t fret if there aren’t any old iPhones lying around your house. Valuer and auctioneer Adam McDonald told The Morning Show that there are plenty of old phones that fetch a pretty penny.
The list of rare phones included the Nokia 8110, the Motorola flip phone and the Samsung N270.
Of course, don’t expect to reap the rewards if your old phone is cracked, splintered and covered in Hello Kitty stickers. These babies need to be boxed and untouched.
Happy hunting girlies, hopefully one of you can make some mullah from your wise decision to leave your phones unopened (for some sick and twisted reason).
