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jarron

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 27, 2011
28
0
I have a brand new factory sealed iPhone 2G, 4GB and i've been sitting on it for years. How much money would you say it is worth nowadays?
 

silverblack

macrumors 68030
Nov 27, 2007
2,680
840
If I were you, I'd wait for another 10 years and sell it as a museum collectable item. The battery may not work though.
 

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,966
1,460
Washington DC
Yeah, at this point you'll mostly get people who want to use it but don't care about modern technology.

Hold on to that sucker another 20 years! Then it'll actually be worth something.
 

wrinkster22

macrumors 68030
Jun 11, 2011
2,623
7
Toronto
a sealed iPhone could go up in a while. I disagree with the previous poster. The 4gb is rare thus worth more than the 8gb
 

ansabakhan

macrumors 65816
Mar 3, 2010
1,210
0
if you dont want to take chance and not hold it for 10 years or so ...
sell it on ebay and have a reserve price of $700-$800 or what ever u want ..

but i would suggest list it as collector item ...
 

sclawis300

macrumors 65816
Apr 22, 2010
1,472
196
depends on how many are out there, and if anyone actually wants it. Something is only worth what another person is willing to pay. Maybe see if you can find something Apple that is sealed for sale from 15-20 years ago and use that as a gauge for a few more years down the road.
 

FreakinEurekan

macrumors 603
Sep 8, 2011
5,056
2,189
did a quick search on ebay, found one that sold for $899 but it was an 8GB.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-NIB-Factory-Sealed-Apple-iPhone-2G-1st-Generation-/330624361636

Here's an 8GB that didn't even get a single bid at $550:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FACTORY-PLA...G-8GB-1st-Gen-NIB-/160643938482#ht_500wt_1413

It's a crap-shoot. Like others have indicated, it's probably not nearly old enough to be a "Collectable" yet. Personally I doubt you'll ever get your money out of it if you account for inflation, so I'd just unload it for whatever you can get.
 

cyks

macrumors 68020
Jul 24, 2002
2,090
8
Westchester County, NY
Yeah, at this point you'll mostly get people who want to use it but don't care about modern technology.

Hold on to that sucker another 20 years! Then it'll actually be worth something.

Except that, even with a new battery, it probably wouldn't be usable then.... as the pile of old analog phones shows.
 

Applejuiced

macrumors Westmere
Apr 16, 2008
40,672
6,533
At the iPhone hacks section.
depends on how many are out there, and if anyone actually wants it. Something is only worth what another person is willing to pay. Maybe see if you can find something Apple that is sealed for sale from 15-20 years ago and use that as a gauge for a few more years down the road.

I dont know why people think it will be a collectible.
Its not going to be rare, there's millions of them out there. Probably will be unusable cause the battery will have died inside etc....
You want to invest and hold on to something for 10-15 years try something different like real estate or precious metals.
 

0dev

macrumors 68040
Dec 22, 2009
3,947
24
127.0.0.1
Stick it up with a reserve. I've seen first gen 4GB iPhones go for about £100 but they were far from sealed, so I dunno, you could be lucky.

----------

All the iPods sold on ebay for thousands of dollars prove you wrong. iPhones are already selling for 1000+.

I got a third gen iPod for about £15, but again that's not exactly sealed. I honestly can't see it making THAT much of a difference though.
 

trajen

macrumors 6502a
Oct 2, 2008
529
12
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4S: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I'll give you $50 and show you a good time. ;)
 

ET iPhone Home

macrumors 68040
Oct 5, 2011
3,823
529
Orange County, California USA
Just curious. Won't the battery corrode? I say this, because I had a very old cell phone when LCD's were black and white (non-color) back then, stored in the garage for years and forgot all about it. I recently found it and when I popped open the battery, it was all rusty and corroded.
 

vitzr

macrumors 68030
Jul 28, 2011
2,765
3
California
Since it's the same form factor as a 3 it's got very little value. It's nice to think it's worth a lot, but given the fact it's a mass produced phone I wouldn't count on much.

Sadly there's nothing special about it.
 

trajen

macrumors 6502a
Oct 2, 2008
529
12
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4S: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

thatoneguy82 said:
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4S: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I'll give you $50 and show you a good time. ;)

Or you can just give me yours. It can be my Xmas present!

What happened to your first offer? Haha

I'll show you a good time as well!
 
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