Vintage Phone Museum: The museum having rare collection of classic cell phones opens in Slovakia

Dobsina, Slovakia, September 10, 2017:

As new smartphones hit the market month in month out, one Slovak technology buff is offering visitors to his vintage phone museum a trip down memory lane – to when cell phones weighed more than today's computers and most people couldn't afford them.

Twenty-six-year-old online marketing specialist Stefan Polgari from Slovakia began his collection more than two years ago when he bought a stock of old cell phones online. Today, his collection at the vintage phone museum boasts some 1,500 models, or 3,500 pieces when counting duplicates.

The vintage phone museum (website: http://www.mobilephonemuseum.org/), which takes up two rooms in his house in the small eastern town of Dobsina, opened last year and is accessible by appointment.

The collection includes the Nokia 3310, which recently got a facelift and re-release, as well as a fully functional, 20-year old, brick-like Siemens S4 model, which cost a whopping 23,000 Slovak koruna – more than twice the average monthly wage in Slovakia when it came out.

"These are design and technology masterpieces that did not steal your time. There are no phones younger than the first touchscreen models, definitely no smartphones," said Mr. Polgari.

"It's hard to say which phone is most valuable to me, perhaps the Nokia 3510i Star Wars edition," said Mr. Polgari – who uses an iPhone in his daily life. (VOA)