Cecil The Lion: Company Charges $2,462 For Special Edition ‘Cecil-Endorsed’ Gold-Plated Phone

You’ve heard of Cecil the lion, now meet the phone. It’s gold-plated with an engraving of Cecil on the back and it comes at the bargain price of $2,462.

Money never sleeps, and neither do cash-generating gimmicks. And when it comes to the life and legend of Cecil the Lion, the king of beasts who was taken out by an American dentist, there’s a lot of money to be made by unscrupulous opportunists who know how to squeeze a tear out of a dry eye and a buck out of a tragedy.

That’s not to say Goldgenie, the London-based purveyors of everything ostentatiously gold and gadgety, are cynically jumping on the almost mythical status of Cecil the lion to make a few dollars.

However, when you market a Cecil the lion edition of the HTC One M9 for $2,462, when the same phone with a gold finish, minus the engraving of Cecil, retails for $670, then it has to be said, something smells rather unpleasant in the capitalist jungle, and it’s not just the rotting corpses of trophy animals.

International Business Times reports that Goldgenie, the ostentatious gold-plated specialists have produced 99 examples of a Cecil the lion edition of its HTC One M9.

The phone glitters like gold, and etched on the back is a drawing of the legendary lion and a somewhat insincere inscription reading “For Cecil and his Kingdom.”

Goldgenie have stated that 10% from every order of its Cecil the lion phones ($247) will be donated to a charity local to where Cecil was killed – Friends of Hwange.

If all 99 units of the phone sell, which you somehow know they will, Goldgenie will donate some $2,339 to charity. A handsome sum by anyone’s standards, but here’s the rub. Once the cost of the phones and the surprisingly cheap gold plating is accounted for, the lion’s share of the profit, some $155,000, will go directly into the coffers of Goldgenie.

Minus the Cecil the lion engraving and inscription, you could if you so wish, buy the exect same phone for significantly less and free up the rest of your cash, a total of £1159 to donate to a charity of your choice.

But then again you wouldn’t have a lovely gold, official Cecil the lion phone to show your friends and prove how morally concerned and impressively proactive you are about the death of Cecil the lion.

(Picture via IB Times)