It was not Midas' touch that did it, but a mobile phone has turned solid gold.

Reuters reported Wednesday that Danish retailer Aesir hopes to sell its $57,400, limited-edition 18-carat gold phones to Moscow's elite market.

The solid gold mobile phone provides no e-mail service, no Internet, no built-in camera, games or GPS navigation, but it will be a trophy for those for whom no excess is too great.

The phone, which took three years to develop, is "not a plaything," said company founder Thomas Jensen.

"It's a collector's item. People are used to collecting, say, watches, while designer phones is a practically empty niche," he told Reuters.

Aesir says it will design a new phone every 18 months and produce no more than 5,000 of its model, sold for 42,000 euros in gold and 7,250 euros ($9,867) in stainless steel.

"Moscow is becoming a booming contemporary art city. At first people here had only money, but now they have style. Their spending is more intellectual and sophisticated," said Mathias Rajani, Aesir's chief commercial officer.

Luxury market analysts see Aesir's designs as an alternative to high-end, gem-encrusted mobiles from Nokia's British mobile subsidiary Vertu, which go for $6,500 to $72,500.

Several of Denmark's richest families, including the owners of toymaker Lego, invested in the developing the phones, designed by Yeves Behar.

Art market investment expert Natalia Legotina says she doubted the phones would become collector's items, but she does think Russia's richest may shell out thousands just to flaunt Aesir's gold mobile.

"It could find a place in the Russian market but definitely not in the cultural elite circles, which favor new smart-phone models," said Legotina, the Moscow representative of British consultancy Art Market Research.

"It will interest Russian oligarchs and their girlfriends as well as businessmen whose social circles demand accessories that act as class indicators," she added.

Aesir, which is rolling out models in Cyrillic and Chinese characters, generated buzz with its glitzy promotion in Moscow last week.

"This phone is amazing - the innovations behind it are also great," said Russian tycoon Vadim Dymov, who owns meat-packing plants in Moscow and has several conceptual art projects.