With all the current talk of financial meltdown and economies in crisis, nothing cheers us up more than a ridiculously extravagant (not to mention expensive) mobile phone. Well, the folks over at Italian luxury phone designers Bellperre have just the ticket with the Bellperre Nero Gold.

Like its predecessors from Bellperre (no, we’ve never heard of em’ either!), the Nero Gold is hand crafted from the finest luxury materials. And of course, because the rich and famous couldn’t bare to have the same phone as other Nero Gold owners, each is custom built to the owners requirements with a choice of materials on offer including aluminum, steel or titanium, the choice of either gold or silver plating and a range of different leather finishes and colours. Classy.

As for the phone, what operating system is worthy of the exquisite exterior? Windows Mobile of course. Which in turn means the Nero Gold gets Winmo extras such as push email and a variety of office applications which is a pleasant surprise in a phone of this ilk.

What features are included in this fine piece of craftsmanship? Well for your (considerable amount of) money you get a built in camera with video (though no word on resolution), MP3 player, Bluetooth, mini USB port, Java, Tri-band and a 2.0 inch display made from unscratchable (a bold claim) Sapphire Crystal. Not bad, but not likely to worry the likes of the Tocco Ultra or LG Arena!

No word on pricing yet but with previous models from Bellperre going for around £11.500, it’s safe to assume the Nero Gold will be on the exciting side of £10k. And no, you won’t get a free PS3 with it.