Another update! The value has appreciated much quicker than I anticipated. A sealed original 8GB iPhone without an App Store icon (indicating it’s one of the earlier models, similar to mine)
recently sold for $39K at auction.
Mine is still in the safe deposit box (costing me $85 a year now). I haven’t been to the bank in a decade, but I plan to go down there this year (I’ve since relocated so it’s a bit of a trip for me). I’ll snap a photo of it and post it here. The serial number has never been activated. Unfortunately I don’t have the receipt so I could see this impacting value.
I think the recent high sale may not hold up for future sales. With major news outlets reporting on this ~50x return I’m expecting a lot of sealed iPhones to come into the market (there has to be thousands right?). However, I don’t think most will be the earlier model. I’m also very curious how much a 4GB iPhone would fetch. (Hard to believe the base model of an iPhone 14 is 128GB!)
And I appreciate the mods keeping this thread alive! Super interesting to read the changing sentiment across the life of this decade+ thread.