Marques Brownlee paid $40K just to unbox a sealed original iPhone from 2007
Published on Sep 17, 2025 at 10:00 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis
Last updated on Sep 17, 2025 at 1:41 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee spent $40,000 to buy a brand-new Apple iPhone 2G from 2007.
The phone was in its box, still sealed.
It was a cross between an unboxing and opening up a time capsule.
And the reason why he invested in the experience makes sense.
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The vintage tech was probably a good investment
Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee – aka MKBHD – spent $40,000 on a factory-sealed 2007 iPhone that had never been opened.
People love a good unboxing video, and unboxing a 2007 Apple iPhone in the 2020s is clearly content that people like.
MKBHD has so far uploaded over 1,700 videos to his channel, and the aforementioned iPhone unboxing video is in the top 30, which is not bad at all.
It also probably made sense financially.
YouTube earnings can vary significantly, but his video, with 10+ million views, made anywhere between $40,000-$100,000.
The story behind the original iPhone 2G
The first iPhone was launched in 2007.
It was retroactively renamed iPhone 1 or iPhone 2G by fans so as not to confuse it with the almost identical iPhone 3G that came out a year later.
Apple iPhone changed the phone industry and nearly bankrupted a lot of competitors by kick-starting a revolution that left several legacy brands behind.
From Nokia to BlackBerry, the list is quite long.
To be clear, most of these companies are still technically in business, but they’re no longer producing phones.
Fast-forward to 2025, and Apple has now shipped 3 billion (!) iPhones worldwide.
Interestingly, the price of factory-sealed first-gen iPhones is still going up.
MKBHD paid $40,000, but just a few months later, somebody paid $63,000 for a brand-new iPhone.
In July 2023, another collector spent $190,000 on a new, unopened iPhone.
