Some Idiot Just Paid $63k For A First Gen iPhone At Auction When They Could Have Got A Sidekick For Like $200
USA Today - A factory sealed, first-generation iPhone sold at auction for a whopping $63,356.40 – more than 100 times its original price – after a woman was gifted the phone in 2007, but never opened it because she didn't want to get rid of her other phone.
The 2007 phone, still sealed in its box, was consigned by the owner and sold on LCG Auctions after bidding closed on Sunday.
In all, 27 people bid for the phone that had been expected to sell for $50,000.
Very few things these days are more jarring than when someone pulls out an old ass iphone. Just a tiny little bizarro version of the phone you scroll TikTok on all day long.
The janky metal strip around the outside that doesn't look like it belongs, the grainy graphics that look a TV in a dentist waiting room, the home button on the bottom, and the puny size that makes it look more like a prop from Zoolander than a working phone in 2023.
It's usually an older relative who says, "this one works fine why would I get a new one?" And then they proceed to bitch about how the battery sucks and they don't get reception anywhere. We all know Apple is fucking us every time they release a new version of the iPhone but what are we going to do? Switch to Samsung and have green text bubbles? I'd rather die by firing squad.
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But now those old ass phones are worth some serious cash. Some jerkoff just spent over $63,000 for a sealed first generation iphone. What's even crazier is it was only about six months ago that the same iphone sold for around $40k at auction.
But why in the hell are people paying this money? It doesn't do any of the things you need a phone to do in 2023. Namely scrolling through posts on TikTok until you are sufficiently horned up from twerk videos to open the incognito browser and fire up some 4k Pornhub.
BMW, Acura, Volvo, Tesla, and Lexus all have cars for well under $60k. You could buy one of these cars and a half dozen brand new iphones for the same amount of money this collector spent on this glorified ipod.
If I'm spending big money on a throwback phone there is only one that is worth shelling out the cash.
The Sidekick was a true status symbol. Before Apple made everyone a clone where we all have the same phone with the same ringtone, Sidekicks stood out from the crowd. With their bad ass swooping screen and digitized rap songs as ringtones it was a real head-turner. Sidekick is still synonymous with "baller" to this day.
And you can get one Ebay right now for like $200.
So you can spend the down payment for a house on an iphone that Apple has made completely unusable and when you pull it out people just think you're a cheap fuck. Or you can spend $200 on a Sidekick that has just as little functionality but everyone will think you run shit the second they see that screen flip 180 degrees.
Seems like a simple choice to me.
But don't take my word for it. Just ask one of the coolest humans to ever walk the earth. Snoop Dog.