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After leaving OKI in 1987, I spent another 17 years
in the cellular telephone industry, including four as
editor of three leading cellular and wireless trade
magazines. During that period, I covered the rise of
wireless data, the physical downsizing of phones,
advances in battery technology, the transition from
analog to digital phone service, the latest features
and capabilities, market factors driving down the
cost of phones and phone service, and the social impact
of anywhere-anytime communications on how we live,
work, play, and stay connected.
Today, I am as clueless as most as to what my phone
can actually do but no less slavishly devoted to the ideal
of personal communication.

So, What’s an Old Phone Worth?
Over the last 40
Some of the early analogue phones released during the 1980s and 90s. years since commercial start-up, OKI CDL440 Briefcase phone consisting
hundreds of iterations and of a 26-pound battery, handset, and
photo: University of Salford retractable antenna packaged in a
generations of cellular phones have
market excited about true mobility and the ubiquitous potential of a come and gone, leaving behind leatherette briefcase, circa 1986
new, nationwide wireless telephone service. artifacts of the technology’s
In 1985, OKI introduced a “briefcase” phone which weighed 28 product evolution for collectors
pounds and consisted of a 26-pound 12v Nicad battery built inside a to tell their own stories.
leatherette briefcase with a sleeve that held the handset and included a While the impulse when
retractable antenna. When we took this revolutionary phone on press upgrading is to discard or put away
tours, our PR agency suggested I be the one to carry it into the obsolete equipment, there is a
meetings to diffuse the argument that it weighed too much to be growing online resale market for
practical. Less than two years later, OKI introduced a more practical, old phones, with early DynaTACs
portable phone: the “bag” phone. Weighing in at less than 10 pounds, going for, on average, $2,000.
the bag phone consisted of a battery, receiver, and handset stacked It is, however, hard to say what
inside a pouch the size and shape of a man’s shaving kit. While both their future value will be but if
phones were “portable” in that they could be used inside and out of recent prices for first-generation
the car, they both consisted of handsets that were still tethered to the Macintosh computers and iPhones
battery and transceiver by a phone cord. Consumers were now ready are any indication, technology
to cut that cord – a day Martin (Marty) Cooper had been dreaming could be your next hot collectible!
about for decades.

To learn more about the history of cellular telephones and Marty Cooper on the 50th anniversary of the first cellular telephone call,
check out these videos available to view at our online Video Gallery

OKI phones evolution 1980s television commercial for When Cell Phones Were
1983-1996 cellular telephones A 1980s Novelty

E
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