These Rare Apple Items Are Up For Auction, And They're Worth More Than You'd Think

Recently, LCG Auctions has been in the news as the place to go for collectors to buy rare and expensive Apple items. In October 2022, an unopened first-generation 2007 iPhone sold for $39,339, with another original iPhone selling for $190,372 in July 2023. The difference in pricing wasn't the result of a sudden shift in the market — it was because the October 2022 auction was for the 8GB model and the July 2023 listing was for the 4GB model, which was so unpopular that it was discontinued in two months. 

As such, the 4GB launch iPhone is a particularly desirable collector's item, and if you're an Apple collector who has the kind of money needed to buy one, you're about to get another chance at owning it. On Friday, October 15, another instance of the 4GB SKU, sealed in its original box with even the Apple Store bag and receipt included, was listed at LCG Auctions. According to the listing, it was consigned to LCG by the original owner and is the first time that the 4GB iPhone has been auctioned off with the additional provenance included. 

The auction will run for 16 days, but that 4GB iPhone is not the only Apple collectible being auctioned off by LCG during that period. Read on to learn what else is being sold, including one item that was never available to consumers.

The most unique Apple collectible being sold by LCG Auctions during this go-round is an award celebrating 20 years of employment with the company that was gifted to the consignor in 2020. According to LCG, the 20-year award is particularly rare, especially when compared to the more commonly seen 10-year award.

Listed with a starting bid of $2,500, the award is made of aluminum and weighs 7.6 pounds with a seven-square-inch footprint while running two inches deep. It comes with the original box and paperwork, namely a notecard from Tim Cook, plus a rundown of the process of creating the physical award.

"Your 20-year award is made from the same 6000 series aluminum that we use to make our products," reads the note about the production process of the physical award. "Remnants from the production process are collected and reformulated to create a 100 percent recycled, custom alloy. The alloy is cast into long ingots, then each ingot is sliced into blocks that are machined to the finished size. The surface is fine blasted and the edges are diamond-cut. The block is then dyed Space Gray and anodized to seal the finish and create a protective layer. Finally, a Space Gray stainless steel Apple logo is set into the center."

Though not mentioned on the physical award, LCG notes that the 2000 to 2020 period it's commemorating includes the original releases of the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, as well as the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs. The auction house estimates that it will sell for at least $5,000.

The ongoing auctions on LCG Auctions include a few more Apple collectibles, one of which is a factory-sealed original iPod from 2001 that came equipped with a 5GB hard drive. Solid-state storage was still expensive in any usable capacity at the time, so this was a massive game-changer in the world of portable music. Besides being the first, it's notable in a few other ways, like being the only iPod with a physical scroll wheel, only having a FireWire connection to use to move your music onto it (USB came later), and having no Windows support whatsoever.

All of the other Apple items listed are different flavors of iPhone. Of these, the most notable one is probably the 8GB model of the original launch iPhone with bidding starting at $10,000. Not only is it a launch iPhone — albeit not as rare as the 4GB version — but when LCG got it, the iPhone was still in the sealed Federal Express shipping box. 

Other iPhones listed include a sealed exemplar of the 16GB version of the first-generation iPhone, which was added to the line in February 2008, complete with an opened FedEx box, plus a sealed iPhone 3G (the second generation) and a sealed iPhone 3GS (the third generation). The same consignor who offered up the 16GB first-generation iPhone also worked with LCG to list a sealed launch version of the Sega Game Gear with "Columns" as the pack-in game.

So, outside of someone trying to make one heck of a long-term play, who are these people who are holding on to sealed iPhones, iPods, and Game Gears for decades? After all, we're not talking about something like a comic book or action figure with a fairly minor initial investment. Everything discussed here went for hundreds of dollars new, and though the Game Gear was the cheapest in contemporaneous dollars at $149.99 in 1991, that amount adjusted for inflation is around $340 today.

Of the listings mentioned here, only the 16GB iPhone inside the opened FedEx box explains why someone had been holding onto these for so long, and it's also the only listing that ties another item (the Game Gear) to the same consignor. "According to our consignor, her parents would often buy multiple electronics for her and her siblings," reads that iPhone listing. "Not everything [was] given out, and some items remained unopened and in storage for decades. This was one of them, along with the factory sealed Sega Game Gear (also one that her parents never gave out)."

So at least in the case of those two items, it appears that the consignor just happened to have some very well-off, spendy parents who could afford to spend hundreds of dollars on gifts that they never gave to the kids and simply forgot about. However, none of the other items have that kind of backstory given, so for now, it remains a mystery as to who was both weird enough and clever enough to hold onto expensive sealed Apple products for so many years.