Luca Rampone, 46 years old, is a shopkeeper who has always dealt with telephony. In recent times he has begun to show off his entire collection on social media. It focuses mainly on vintage models: new smartphones have designs that are too similar to each other.
A black rectanglea flat back, a compartment that It contains cameras. Every now and then something changes. A camera comes out of the body like a mechanical arm. The screen folds with a casket. The back changes color based on the temperature. But essentially the new smartphones have a fairly similar profile. It hasn’t always been this way. Before that in 2007 Apple imposed on the market the design we know today with its iPhone, every phone tried to play with all the elements at his disposal. Even making life difficult. Retractable keyboards, screens that opened to the side, keys positioned in unthinkable places. Each brand was trying to sprint forward and focus on a feature never seen before.
Luca Rampone46 years old, lives in Turin. He has always worked in world of telephony: “In 1995 I opened the first Omnitel store in Italy”. He collects phones, but only vintage ones. On social media he often shows his warehouse, where there are boxes stacked on all the shelves. Some are new, never used. Others, however, are original models but removed from the packaging. Still others have fallen a few too many times to light up again: “I have to sort everything. I always tell myself that one day I will find the time to put everything in place but that day becomes more and more distant. In any case I will have about 5,000 models. In the meantime I continue to collect them.” Sure, this collection is longer but perhaps a little cheaper than the one shown by Mr Sim, the man who owns the number 333 333 33 33.
Family business. His father had a phone shop and he was among the first in Turin to install telephones in cars: “We are talking about the first models that could be installed in cars, such as the Olivetti OCT 100 or 200. They are the most precious telephones in my collection. They were installed in cars between the 70s and 80s. In Turin, of course, I was a child but I saw everyone’s cars go through the shop, from Agnelli to Ferrero. This is why I managed to keep a kit in perfect condition, still with all the pieces wrapped in the packaging.”
Interview with Mr Sim, the man with 333 3333333: “I have the collection, even 000 00 00. It’s worth as much as a Picasso”
The design of the smartphone before the arrival of the touch screen
Together with Luca we look at the main models. “I collect phones that have a vintage value. Of course, I have some smartphones but they don’t interest me much. In the end they are all the same now: a black rectangle with cameras behind them.” Even if they are old, without access to social media or WhatsApp, some of these phones they are still worth a lot: “I have a Motorola STARTAC Rainbow that is much sought after by collectors. It is a piece that in good condition is worth even 1,000 euros. We are talking about a STARTAC, a historical Motorola model, created with all colored plastics. It was produced in 1997”.
Indeed Motorola it stood out quite a bit in design. One of the latest models to have attracted the attention of the market was the RAZR V3released in 2004. A very thin flip phone with a color screen. It stood out quite a bit in an era in which most of the phones in circulation were variants of the NOKIA 3310. And in fact, another model remembered by Luca is also from Motorola:
“There is a model that I’m still looking for. I have some that are broken but I’m missing what in jargon is called a full set, the complete version with box and cables. It’s the Motorola Aura, a phone that opens from the side with a circular screen. It’s beautiful. The complete set is also worth 5,000 euros among collectors. The only one I had was stolen.”
“Thank you, that was my father’s phone”
But there is something more than the interest in models or technological innovations: “These mobile phones are pieces of life. They are objects that have entered our memory. The people who write to me on social media remember the phone they had when they started working, the one with which they perhaps took wedding photos or the first one they received as a gift from their parents. I would like to build a museum, many have written to me but we need to organize everything.” In the end, this is the meaning of the collection: “Perhaps the comment that moved me the most was that of a user who wrote under the video of a rather particular model “Thank you, it was my dad’s phone. I no longer remembered it”. The phone was a Sagema French model widely used in construction.
