With the reappearance of this thread - diverged to a saner line of conversation, I might add, I took another look at the 'iPan' (doesn't someone have to pay Apple a royalty over the 'i'?). I had always assumed someone had slipped a decimal point, twice, when pricing. Seems this isn't the case.
On the one hand the thing is worth what someone is willing to pay, on the other...
- The thing is preternaturally ugly, OK, looks only a mother could love;
- It's engraved with the former owner's name in big letters, a US government entity of all things (I know, the land of the $47,000 toilet seat, but the art gallery isn't the military) so the makers of this camera were the low bidder on some government RFQ and the present seller got hold of it Govm't Surplus (usually a few cents on the dollar);
- In photo #6 it shows the stop down lever is held with duct-tape, you would think for $1,000,000 they could clean it up a bit;
- Just because there were only 50 made doesn't make it scarce - one can surmise that likely only 50 people wanted one;
- It doesn't do anything special, you can get the same picture with a 4x5 camera and a 65mm lens;
- It isn't historically significant.
Jay Leno used to do a skit of things sold on ebay, this would fit right in between the popcorn kernel in the shape of The Madonna ($176) and Madonna's spat out chewing gum ($4,727).