A first-generation iPhone with a “Lucky You” sticker recently sold at auction for $40,320 because it was still in the original packaging. It was purchased by Marques Brownlee — known to many as MKBHD — who then made a YouTube video of unboxing the handset.
Watch as Brownlee reduces the value of the device to nearly nothing just for the shock value of it.
That’s $40,000 down the drain
First-generation iPhone units still in their original packaging are rare. Rare enough that one sold for over $63,000 earlier this year.
But they aren’t unique. Three of them went under the gavel in the past few months. But the total number of factory-sealed 2007 iPhones was reduced after MKBHD bought then unboxed one.
The YouTuber purchased a unit that many people might remember because it has a rare ‘Lucky you’ sticker on it. Actually, it had that sticker because it went with the packaging.
Watch the iPhone 1 unboxing video for yourself:
2007 iPhone is now a paperweight
This was clearly a stunt done for the shock value of wasting $43,000. Nothing new was learned by opening up a 16-year-old product. There are plenty of videos done in 2007 that show what’s in the box.
Brownlee made what was previously a valuable bit of history into something essentially identical to the thousands other 2007 iPhone units that are still gathering dust in drawers and boxes. These typically sell for low prices to a amateur collectors.
And it’s not like the newly opened device is useful in any way. It can’t be activated, and it requires 2G networks that U.S. carriers have shut down.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
