A few people got lucky. Trevor Lyman, 21, a senior at Temple University in Philadelphia, sold an 8-gigabyte phone on eBay for $1,300 while waiting in line last Friday afternoon to buy it. He has sold two more, but for far less than the first one.

Demand for the phone was remarkably strong in the first days. Analysts estimate that Apple and AT&T stores have sold around 500,000 phones so far. Over the last few weeks, Apple stirred a great deal of speculation about inventory levels by shrouding them in secrecy. As a result, resellers decided to take a chance. The company declined to comment on the rush to resell the phones, and on the status of iPhone inventories.

Some resellers are amused, if not wealthier. Jack Boyce, 62, a graphic designer in Boston, bought two 8-gigabyte phones last Friday, after waiting four and a half hours in line. Boyce took his computer with him and was able to do a little work. He charges clients $100 an hour and calculates that he lost three and a half billable hours.

Still, Boyce said, he “had a ball” waiting outside the Apple store. “The people around me were wonderful,” he said. “We took pictures of each other.”And he remains optimistic that someone might still pay him $950 for his extra phone, pointing out that only a few Apple stores have iPhones in stock, and none of the AT&T stores do. “So my wish may be coming true,” he said.