Gold-plated iPhone 5 handsets on sale for £20,000

Tech fans with a spare £20,000 burning a hole in their pocket can now get their hands on the world's first gold encrusted iPhone 5 handset.

When Apple chief executive Phil Schiller described the new phone as 'an absolute jewel', it's unlikely he was thinking of one fitted with 53 flawless diamonds.

A British company has designed a special 18-carat gold edition of the record-breaking smartphone unveiled by Apple on September 12.

Liverpool designer Stuart Hughes has created 100 of the blinged-out handsets which are set to sell for £21,995 each.

It takes weeks to create the handmade bespoke items based on the original 64GB iPhone 5, complete with gold and diamond furnishings.

'This beautiful handset will take weeks of detailed intricate work to re-create the original chassis of the iPhone in solid gold, all of which was started and finished by hand,' explained the designer.

'There will be gold dressing for the rear section with the logo in solid gold with 53 flawless diamonds amounting to 1ct.'

Mr Hughes, who creates build to order handsets, recently sold a unique iPhone 4S Elite Gold for £6million to an Australian businesswoman.

Apple said it was 'blown away by the customer response to the iPhone 5' with the handset selling over 5million units in its first weekend of sale.


/metro.co.uk/