Vertu, the British luxury phone maker, is going to be liquidated

The company is known for its high-end handsets, which are usually decked out in gems and have starting prices in the tens of thousands of pounds, but it in recent years, it has faced financial difficulties. Its owner tried to rescue Vertu from bankruptcy by paying £1.9 million ($2.4 million) of its £128 million debt, according to reports from The Financial Times and The Telegraph.

In the end, Vertu still has to shut down, resulting in the loss of nearly 200 jobs across Vertu’s UK manufacturing operation. Keep in mind the company was sold by its former Chinese owner to Hakan Uzan, a Turkish exiled businessmen currently living in Paris. He will continue to own Vertu’s brand, technology, and design licenses, with plans to revive the company in the future.

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Vertu was founded by Nokia in 1998. It sold in 2012 and switched from using Nokia's Symbian operating system on its devices to Android - usually really old versions running on outdated processors. But while the company sold phones that lacked in many ways, they usually made up for it by offering customers the experience of owning a device comprised of precious metals and jewels.

Vertu even let customers talk to the people making their phone.