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Stuart Hughes photo

A detail of the pink diamond and 18 kt rose gold iPhone by Stuart Hughes

Personalized jewelry

Pink diamonds turn phones into jewelry

At £30,000, the Nokia Royal Plus is not just one of the world’s most expensive telephones.

It is a feat of craftsmanship.

Goldstriker International founder Stuart Hughes and three craftsmen took months to transform the Nokia Carbon Arte into a platinum and diamond masterpiece.

The carbon fibre was carefully removed from the device and replaced with solid platinum weighing an immense 65 grams (the average platinum wedding band is 4 grams). That puts the total weight of the phone at 150 grams or one-third of a pound.

The platinum is set with 1,160 diamonds totaling 8.2 carats of VVS F colour stones.

Or course, not just any ordinary cardboard packaging would do for a phone that qualifies as fine jewelry.

So the Nokia Royal Plus, which is available only at Harrods, comes with a granite case.

Stuart Hughes is based in Liverpool, England and specializes in decorating cell phones, iPods, pens and lighters with gold, platinum and diamonds. Goldstriker can also add diamonds to a favourite watch, and the website shows examples of Chanel, Cartier, Rolex and Franck Muller timepieces that have been gussied up with gems.

The firm’s latest achievement is an 18 kt rose gold iPhone with 53 pink diamonds ringing in at £21,995.