No smartphones! Vintage mobile phone museum opens in Slovakia

DOBSINA, Slovakia: As new smartphones hit the market month in month out, one Slovak technology buff is offering visitors to his vintage cellphone museum a trip down memory lane – to when cellphones 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 cellphones online. Today, his collection boasts some 1,500 models, or 3,500 pieces when counting duplicates.

The museum, which takes up two rooms in his house in the small eastern town of Dobsina, opened last year and is accessible by appointment.

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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 350i Star Wars edition,” said Mr Polgari – who uses an iPhone in his daily life.