Do you have an old cell phone somewhere? Before throwing it away, check it out thoroughly: it could be worth several hundred euros. Here are the most quoted models
Also in the technology sector, modernity has its own market and its quotations and even cell phones do not escape this logic and these market dynamics. It happens, so, that an old phone if well preserved is worth a fortune and that there is more than one collector ready to spend to have it.
We are talking, of course, of cell phones very different from those we use and buy today: no smart features, no 4G or dual SIM, and tiny screens and strictly non-touch and black and white, if not absent. But what models are we talking about exactly, and at what prices? Let’s find out.
Motorola DynaTAC 8000x
Let’s start with the most vintage cell phone of all: the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, that is the first ever model of cell phone in history. Launched on the market in 1984 by Motorola, the DynaTAC 8000x weighed almost 8 ounces, could store a maximum of 30 phone numbers and in Europe was compatible with the GSM network at 900 MHz. A total of 300 thousand units were sold, at a price of 3,995 U.S. dollars. As we write there is one for sale on eBay UK at a price of £ 2,000, or 2,320 euros.
Nokia Mobira Senator
According to others, the first cell phone in history would not be the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x but the Mobira Senator of Nokia, sold since 1982. Actually in this case it is not a real portable phone, but more of a car phone since it weighed 9 kilos and 800 grams because of the big battery. If you wanted you could also use it as a “portable” phone, because it was sold with a large hard bag on the shoulder. No one remembers its original price, but at the moment an eBay UK user sells it for 3,800 pounds (4,400 euros) and claims to have already sold another one for 5,900 pounds.
Nokia 9000 Communicator
In comparison to the two previous cell phones, the Nokia 9000 Communicator is a young man: the Finnish company put it on the market in 1996 presenting it as a small revolution. In its own way it was a “foldable” cell phone and had a small grayscale screen and a full keyboard, weighed 400 grams, had 8 MB of memory and mounted an AMD i386 processor. No, you haven’t read it wrong: at the time AMD had a license to produce Intel’s processors. Today it sells for between €150 and €600.
Apple iPhone 2G
Also known as EDGE, the iPhone 2G is the progenitor of the world’s best-selling smartphone family. On sale since June 2007 with a starting price of $399, it has a capacitive touch color screen. It is so revolutionary that after just 74 days it reaches one million units sold. And it goes down in history. Today you can find it starting at 250 euros, but on eBay there is a user who sells one still in the original packaging intact. Want to know how much he asks? Seven thousand euros.