Diamond-encrusted mobile phones have become almost commonplace.  Rose gold, yellow gold, white gold, and platinum are used to make the faces of cellulars all over the world.  With the iPhone—in all its incarnations—having been pimped to the highest possible degree, famed cell phone designer Stuart Hughes has chosen to take a step back…in time.

This is one of those phones from the 80s, the kind so big and heavy that it needed its own carrying case.  Looking more like a brick that the tiny, sleek phones that almost everyone carries now, it is clearly retro for the sake of being retro.  It would be difficult to imagine someone actually using the phone, but, for a collector, it does make a conversation piece.  Coming in at just over $212,000, this is collector’s item.

Called the Prive, it is encased in over 900 grams of yellow gold and has 76 internally flawless white diamonds totaling 23 carats surrounding the updated screen.  Although the shell is definitely old school, the insides are entirely updated to modern standards.  It supports SMS, texting, WAP, and everything else a person would expect from a new phone.  The difference is in the art.  And, like all art, it will not be appreciated by everybody.  Hughes plans to make only 10 such pieces, and will sell them through his website.  It is a cell phone connoisseur’s dream, but a practical nightmare.

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