One thing to know is that you get a real, not modern repo, old phone is that it will need a real 4 wire hook up to ring. This can be real rare in these days of solid state phones.
I had given my son a genuine, Western Electric, made in Indianapolis, IN rotary wall phone, with a 12 hand set wire, for his garage.
When his wife began to work out of the house, the phone guys came and installed a “separate” DSL line. Everything would work fine until some one would call the old home number. Those calls would drop the DSL line.
It was the need for the old phone to have the high power to ring the bell.
Almost all homes no days have a four wire drop from the pole, but only use two per phone number. The DSL guys had used the 2 “extra” witres for the DSL number.
I told him to get the phone co guys back. He would need either another drop from the pole for her or get rid of the old phone. He disconnected the old phone and everything worked fine.
When he showed the phone to the DSL guys, they had never seen one like it, or even heard of a 4 wire phone. It was a real “generation gap.”
He ended up replacing it with a cordless phone. It works even better than the 12 foot wire he had on the old one.
