There’s quite a steady flow of iPhone discounts this holiday season. Yesterday I posted about Walmart(s wmt). And today I received word of sales at Best Buy(s bby) and Sam’s Club. It got me thinking: When was the last holiday season the iPhone went on sale in so many different places, if at all?

And after thinking kicking it around for a while, I started to realize: The iPhone never really did go on sale quite like this before. Historically, Apple’s smartphones have remained relatively steadfast in their price: $199.99 for the current year’s model on-contract, $99.99 for the model before that, and a free phone at least two years old.  This year, though, Apple did something a little different when it introduced two new iPhones – the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c – and did away with last year’s iPhone 5 completely.

It’s not such a radical…