A first generation iPhone which was never removed from its box has sold at auction for more than 100 times its original price after it went up for auction.
The gadget was bought for its owner, Karen Green, by friends when she started a new job in 2007.
As she already had a phone and did not want to swap suppliers she left it in its box on a shelf where it sat until 2019 when she had it valued on a US daytime show who said it was now worth $5,000 (£4,100).
Last year it was reported another iPhone went for $39,000 so she finally decided to sell hers.
When it went up for auction it sparked a bidding war between 27 people.
It eventually sold for $63,000 (£50,000).
She told the Insider ahead of the auction: "I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, I think I have the original.
"I called my son and I was like, 'Go get the phone and make sure it's not opened."
Karen had decided to finally sell the phone to support her new tattoo cosmetic business.
She added: “If I could hold off on the phone for like another 10 years, I probably would, the only reason why I'm selling that phone is because I need to support this business.”
Long forgotten discarded mobiles could be an easy source of revenue for people who have them languishing in drawers.
Last year Insurance firm Protect Your Bubble compared the average eBay selling price of dozens of popular retro phones.
One of the first available commercial mobile phones, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, has an average sale price of £1,776.01.
The model was first released in 1984 and was sold 12 times in the year from May 2021-May 2022 on eBay.
The second most profitable phone over the same period was the HTC Touch Diamond2 or ‘HTC Topaz’, of which only one was sold for £542.90.
It went for £528.94 more than its predecessor the HTC Touch Diamond, which was sold for just £13.42.
The iPhone 1st Generation sold for an average selling price of £542.55,
Nokia 6310i owners made £68,517 selling them.
Released in 2002, the retro phone had an average selling price of £47.45 on eBay.
The second top grossing phone was the Nokia 2100 and 15 of the top 20 were Nokia models.
The third top-grossing phone was the BlackBerry Bold with £37,903.
