The new owner, Du Toan, is well-known in Vietnam’s luxury car and tech collector circles. He acquired the phone through a charity auction organized by a prominent iPhone reseller in Hanoi, aimed at raising funds for flood relief in central Vietnam.

According to Toan, the online auction was heated, partly due to participation from anonymous accounts that artificially drove up the price without intending to purchase.

“It wasn’t easy for genuine buyers like me to win. I had to get help from friends using multiple accounts to secure a reasonable bid. In the end, it was fate  -  the winning account wasn’t mine, but someone from my team,” he shared.

After the auction, Toan contacted the store directly to finalize the transaction. The shop agreed to sell the phone to him at the "lucky" price of 52,688,888 VND, significantly higher than the current market price of around 30 million VND ($1,195).

“To most people, the IMEI  -  the International Mobile Equipment Identity  -  is a technical string of digits. But to collectors, it's the soul of the device,” Toan explained. “Patterns like quadruple or quintuple digits, or ascending numbers like 6789 or 999999, symbolize fortune, success, and prosperity. That’s why their value can double or even triple compared to regular units. For the right buyer, the price can be limitless.”

Toan shared that he has been collecting iPhones since the early days of the product’s entry into Vietnam. What excites him the most, however, are the rare and aesthetically pleasing IMEI numbers  -  akin to his passion for cars with distinctive license plates or chassis numbers believed to bring luck.

“Among hundreds of thousands, even millions of iPhones produced, finding one with a ‘quintuple 8’ IMEI like this is extremely rare. It's a matter of fate. And rare things aren’t always about money  -  sometimes, even with money, you can’t find them,” he said.

According to Toan, collectors typically keep these special phones sealed in their boxes as display pieces, treating them more like feng shui artifacts or mementos than devices for daily use.

He likened hunting rare-IMEI iPhones to chasing cars with “quintuple” or “lucky” number plates, where scarcity elevates both emotional and monetary value.

“If you can find an older iPhone model like the 4 or 5, still sealed in its original box, that's already rare. But if it also has a ‘quintuple 8’ IMEI, that’s a collector’s dream,” he added.

Y Nhuy