Old phone collection

[dadsEH]

this is scary..... In the back woods of Southern Ontario way back in the fifties....
Our phone # from 1953 was 131 , thats 1 long 3 short and 1 long ring . It was a party line and all done by the local operator 4 miles down the road. You had to listen carefully to the number of rings to see if the call was for you and then answer. When mom wasnt looking I used to stand on the chair and I used to pick up carefully when the neigbours number was called, I listened in silence and picked up all the hot gossip!!
Later we moved to the big smoke outside Toronto and our number was Market 3-0932, or MA 3-0932.
Later as the system grew it became what we know as the 7 digit dial # 623 - 0932
Now kiddies... have a look at your cell phone and you will see that the 'M' corresponds with number 6 and 'A' is a 2. did you follow that one??
Then as they ran out of numbers on a national scale they introduced area codes i.e. '905'
And finally when computors took over with direct dial the prefaced the whole shooting match with a '1' for country code...N.America.
try doing that on yer ancient dial up phone! 0011 1 905 623 0932...my finger hurts.

Oh.. and dont bother calling that number... its been gone since 1972.

 

[mooseracing]

It was a party line and all done by the local operator 4 miles down the road.

We had a party line into the early 80's also had our pulse dialing phone into the 90's. We didn't keep them for the look, our boxes at the road hadn't been upgraded so we couldn't get anything new.

The lines are horrible to, so much noise in them.

 

[canbug]

Have you ever had a kid try to use an old rotery phone? I have one in the garage and one in the house. First you have to tell them how to use the phone and then it takes them 8 or 10 tries to get the number though. It's great fun.


Tim.

 

[jeffmoss26]

We have another 302 set in the family room, it is always funny to watch my cousins or kids of my parents' friends try to use the rotary dial! Eventually they catch on and think it's cool!

 

[gte718p]

I do remember using some of the more recent "old phones" and miss them. What I think is funny how we still use phrases like "Dial 911" but you cannot "dial" a phone anymore!

I still use the old-fashioned ring on my cell phone - so much more "romantic" than some ring tones of today.

In fact, I used one of these a few years ago on my cell phone. A great a conversation piece. But the one I had was lousy quality and ceased working within a few months.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/7830/

I even used one of these for "hands-free"

http://www.mypencil.com/mall/sof301.jpg

If you want to go retro you should go all the way

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/286

Rotary dialed cellphone. I had one in college. Tons of fun and a great conversation piece. Also a great way to win bets at the bar.

 

[jeffmoss26]

Added these to my collection a few weeks ago!

 

[Lou's Garage]

Added these to my collection a few weeks ago!

The successor to Lou's Garage, North Rockland Amoco, had a phone just like the one on the right. While I owned the business (1976-1986), I switched to touch-tone dialing. That was a really big deal!...and a great time saver in the days before phones with memories.

 

[R6 Racer]

Fantastic collection!
I have been looking for one like the black wall hanger that is in the third pic from your original post for some time now.

If anyone here knows of the whereabouts of one that's available, please let me know!

Steve

 

[jeffmoss26]

It's a Western Electric 354 if that helps in your search!

 

[billspit]

I want one of the western electric compact wall phones with the rotary dial that sits on top and a side cradle for the receiver.

 

[4Tigers]

Wife worked for Pacific Northwest Bell / Uswest / Qwest for 23 years got to see cut overs from old switching stations to modern electronics fun to see what goes on at the other end.

Will post a picture of our candle stick. phone enjoying this thread! Thanks Jeffmoss26

 

[jeffmoss26]

billspit, is this it? (picture from google)

4tigers, post away. I love all things telephone!

 

[The Hot Rod Grille]

Here's my garage payphone in it's wooden phone booth.

Jim

 

[jeffmoss26]

I'm super jealous! From that I can tell that's one heck of a garage!

 

[NitroPress]

Another approach is to buy a micro PBX or KSU and run office-grade multiline phones through the house - it's not hard if you can get to most of the phone wiring and change it to a "star" configuration instead of a loop. (A star configuration is where each phone jack is individually wired back to a central point.) You can pick up a wide variety of Panasonic KSUs and matching phones cheap, and you then have a full slate of features including system-wide hold, call transfer, and point to point intercom.

Panasonic is almost as bulletproof as Ma Bell stuff - at least, the commercial grade stuff was. No comment on the $99 multipacks at Sam's Club etc. these days; not the same planet.

Not in any way trying to turn this into a sales thread, but I do have 2 complete Panasonic systems for sale, including voicemail and auto-attendant - but you can pick then up on eBay as well.

 

[jeffmoss26]

I have four phone systems in my basement
Inter-Tel Axxess, Nortel Norstar, Panasonic KX-TA624, WE 1A2