A SWINDON business has a vintage mobile phone collection to rival any seen in 40th anniversary news reports.

Mobile phones weren’t generally available until the early 1980s, but the first call was made in New York by a Motorola worker called Martin Cooper on April 3, 1973.

When an anniversary news report aired from the telephone section of a museum in Milton Keynes, there were some wry chuckles at Prestige Communications, a company based at the Equity Trade Centre in Swindon’s Hobley Drive.

“We thought we’d get in touch with the Adver,” said Robert Checker, 66, standing by a tall glass cabinet filled with old models ranging from iconic 1980s ‘bricks’ to a Nokia 6210 from the turn of the century.

“Sharing it is the best part of having it,” he added.

“There’s no point in having a piece of art and putting it in your cellar – everybody who comes in here looks and says, ‘Oh, I had one of them,’ or ‘I remember that’.”

Prestige is run by Martin, wife Jean and brother Andrew, 59.

Currently the cabinet and its contents are only seen by clients of the company, which provides businesses with bespoke telephone, two-way radio, CCTV and PA systems among other services.

They’re looking at ways to bring the collection to a wider audience.

The old phones have little or no monetary value but are priceless to people with an interest in vintage technology.

One phone not usually on display because people would probably trip over it is a huge Inmarsat Lynxx satellite system.

Modern satellite phones are only a little larger than ordinary mobiles, but the Lynxx – dating from the 1990s– it is the size of a large backpack and includes a dish and base station.

A museum in California once asked to display it, but were politely turned down.

Prestige was founded in 1982.

Jean Checker said: “We were the first sellers of mobile phones in Swindon.”

Early clients were business people, and Robert recalled a typical one: “His tyre business was based on the fact that his wife stayed at home to answer the phone. The appeal of the mobile phone was that it relieved that situation. Small businesses didn’t have to have a set base or office.”

The company moved away from mobile phone sales in the 1990s, when huge corporations began squeezing out smaller firms.

The Prestige collection is made up of old stock and old personal phones.

The earliest machines in the collection are even bigger and heavier than the ‘bricks’ we associate with 1980s yuppies.

The person who handed over £1,200 for an early Motorola or Racal found themselves with something resembling a small car battery to which a handle and receiver had been attached. They could look forward to using it for about 20 minutes before plugging the battery in for a 10 or 12-hour recharge.

The Motorola Independent, introduced a few years later, was more manageable, being about the size of a housebrick split in half lengthways.

The cabinet includes the first Nokia Smartphone from 1996, forever remembered for a conventional keypad that flipped to reveal a mini QWERTY keyboard beneath.

“They’re not valuable but they have a visible appeal,” Robert added. “People like to look at them.”

More information about Prestige can be found at www.prestigecomms.com.