Dig out that Nokia 3310: What's old is new again as vintage mobile phones take off

They fit in a pocket, have batteries that last all week and are almost indestructible: old-school Nokias, Ericssons and Motorolas are making a comeback as consumers tired of fragile and overly wired smartphones go retro.

Forget apps, video calls and smiley faces, handsets such as the Nokia 3310 or the Motorola StarTac 130 allow just basic text messaging and phone calls.

But demand for them is growing and some second-hand models are fetching prices as high as €1,000 (HK$10,500) each.

"Some people don't blink at the prices; we have models at more than €1,000. The high prices are due to the difficulty in finding those models, which were limited editions in their time," said Djassem Haddad, who started the site vintagemobile.fr in 2009.

Haddad had been eyeing a niche market, but sales have taken off since last year, he said.

Over the past two to three years, he has sold some 10,000 handsets, "with a real acceleration from the beginning of 2013", Haddad said.