Old school models of mobile phones are reportedly fetching upwards of $1500 online as consumers return to more reliable modes of communication.

European retro phone site vintagemobile.fr has recorded a jump in sales of brick-like mobiles in the past year thanks to a turn away from more complicated, expensive and delicate smartphone models.

“The ageing population is looking for simpler phones, while other consumers want a second cheap phone,” Djassem Haddad, creator of the site, told The Daily Telegraph.

The models, which are so basic that they only allow for texts and calls and have no camera or internet capabilities, are retailing for exorbitant prices as consumers clamour for simplified technology.

Of course, you can play Snake on the old school phones which could also account for the price.

“Some people don’t blink at the prices, we have models at more than 1000 euros. The high prices are due to the difficulty in finding those models, which were limited editions in their time.”

According to the Telegraph, Mr Haddad has sold more than 10,000 handsets in the last couple of years, with the most popular being Nokia’s 8210 model.

The most expensive phone on the site is the gold Nokia 8800, which is priced at 999.99 Euros.

Nokia, the dominant mobile phone company before the rise of Apple, offloaded its handset division to Microsoft earlier this year after failing to crack the smartphone market.