Does anyone know of where or a link to someplace or someone who has taken photographs of any and all stickers found on rotary telephones from the 1970's back to when informational stickers for telephones were first created and posted them as a historical record of what was found on phones back in the rotary era?
I have several stickers that went either on the handset or between the cradle. MOST are either Fire, Police Ambulance, or Funeral Homes.
Most as you may be able to tell glowed in the dark.
D/P
Removing all the stickers is a two-edged sword. It's nice to have them to show the sign of the times as they have some historical value of their own. Many of them have advertisements for places that no longer exist. But usually we want a nice sticker free phone for our collections so we take them off. I have started saving the unusual vinyl ones like Dan posted here. The glow-in-the-dark funeral home stickers. A lot of drug store ads too. There's no saving the paper ones unless they are just left untouched on the phone.
Please pardon my ignorance, but why did so many funeral parlors send out phone stickers? I can understand drug stores, pizza shops, and auto repair garages, but do people really call the first funeral parlor whose number they find when someone dies? It always seemed rather morbid to me.
Larry
Just my thought here but, I would think that would be there way of best advertising, because normally you wouldn't look for a mortuary till you needed one. Thus them advertising would put them in your mind when the time came and odds are you wouldn't just look for the closest in the phone book. What da ya think?
I always thought that you would call the Funeral Home if the first number you called didn't get there in time. >:(
Those are nice Doug. I think I have only one of those that came on the Model 332 from eBay. The phone was in Tennessee but the Ad ring was from a local drug store here. Another aspect of collecting phones.
I always thought that it was funny that anyone would actually put one of these on their phone. Some people just can't pass up on something that is free. And some people (Me) will collect just about anything too. It's just the morbid side of my sense of humor.
My only dial advertisement is this one, though its not a sticker. You placed it over the dialcard holder and then a clear plastic cap fit over the top of that to hold it in place. This one came out of New York City on a 302 I got last year.
Jeff
IMO, the dial ring with the ad for the funeral home just below the one for the ambulance service is particularly tasteless.
Larry
I thought I read some where that in the olden days in some towns the Funeral Home also ran the ambulance service. I wonder if they had an ambulance that turned black if they were too late.
And as the story goes Strowger was a Funeral Director and the town switchboard operator was the wife of his competitor. So when someone asked the operator for HIS Funeral home, the Operator would ring up her husband. Strowger got so tired of this happening and losing so much business that he wanted to take the human element out of making a phone call so he went to work on developing the first automatic switching equipment. He invented the Strowger switch and then I think it was about seven years later he invented the first dial. Strange that the dial came second, I think the early switches worked by pressing a button so many times for the number that you wanted to "dial".
Quote from: Wallphone on January 17, 2011, 04:29:01 PM
I always thought that you would call the Funeral Home if the first number you called didn't get there in time. >:(
Yes but the first number was 911 and now you're expected to dial 7 or 10 digits to tell them you've died? They better work on a shorter number for funeral homes.
Cool attachements Doug! Hopefully you're collecting them because of your phone obsesion not in case you need the numbers in a hurry!
Terry
I never remove the stickers off my phone unless they're in poor shape. I have a few glow in the dark funeral handset stickers on my phones....
(http://lh4.ggpht.com/_26I3Nyjgm7Q/TTZCZtGHKnI/AAAAAAAATfg/z-pVmozNYNg/sticer%20111.JPG)
Now that's an "Old Telephone Sticker"
I think old folks put these on their phones so that whoever found them would know which funeral home to call.
Here's the keys to the hearse.
Skeleton keys, (get it?) ;D
Those skeleton keys look awesome on that dial wheel ring!
About the stickers - I hate the imprint left behind after years of uneven fading / discoloring.... known as a "tan line" on guitars when removing old pick guards.
I've had a few on light colored wall phones that were impossible to polish completely out ... without sanding.
Josh P
Quote from: Sargeguy on January 18, 2011, 08:47:25 PM
(http://lh4.ggpht.com/_26I3Nyjgm7Q/TTZCZtGHKnI/AAAAAAAATfg/z-pVmozNYNg/sticer%20111.JPG)
Now that's an "Old Telephone Sticker"
I think old folks put these on their phones so that whoever found them would know which funeral home to call.
Geez, with that said I'm glad I got this hanging near the phone. Maybe when my kids find my dried up old corpse lying on the floor they'll know who to call.
Does anyone know how to dial the "Fire" or "Emergency" numbers with the magneto crank on that Oak Subset?
Guarantees they will think of you "fondly" as a phone collector whren they try to figure that out!
Terry
Quote from: ae_collector on January 19, 2011, 02:23:24 PM
Does anyone know how to dial the "Fire" or "Emergency" numbers with the magneto crank on that Oak Subset?
Guarantees they will think of you "fondly" as a phone collector whren they try to figure that out!
Terry
Swing open the front door and use the TT pad inside.
Jim
I have never been a fan of the stickers on phones. I try to make mine look as new as possible, so the stickers are out. BUT...I have removed stickers from phones and found the phone had faded, when they looked fine to the naked eye, so the sword does cut both ways. ....Doug
I've got one of those rotary dial key fobs too....like the one DougPav posted earlier. Also a couple of dial center Ads.
Nice dial centers Dennis. I always liked those kind with the window in them. I didn't take a very good picture of my key fob but if you look close you will see that it is from a mortuary. Of the four dial rings that I have one of them was on a phone that was listed on eBay. I didn't want to buy the phone just for the ring but when the phone didn't sell I asked the seller if he would take the ring off and sell it to me for a couple of bucks. It was nice of him to go through the trouble to do this. I couldn't stop at one because you can't call one a collection, but four is enough. And even though I don't need any more, (what does NEED have to do with it?) whenever I see them on eBay I have to look to see where they are from. I haven't seen any good ones lately, most are from car dealers and one was from some guy running for City Magistrate or something like that. Now who would put that one on your phone unless he was a relative of yours?
Doug, that's a good story about getting that ring from the person selling the phone. That was nice of him/her to sell you just the Ad ring. They must have advertised those in a trade journal or something.
I like you key ring. Hmmm.....maybe I'll start looking for those to collect. I bought a phone from back East and months later the seller remembered me and sent me an e-mail about that key ring I posted. She asked if I'd like to buy it so I did. It would be fun to have several.
Regarding yours, that funeral home is still in business. And they even have the same phone number still.
http://www.funeralplan2.com/chapman/
So they are still in business, well maybe I'll have them come pick me up when I kick the bucket. I've always wanted to do some traveling, and that would be my last chance. ;D
Doug,
Thanks for reminding me about the dial rings. I've pulled them off sets for years and haven't paid much attention to them. I found several hanging on a bracket in the basement. It's interesting to see the variation in shapes, materials and topics.
Anyone collecting these is welcome to contact me privately. I'm sure I have more than I need.
Also found two sample kits, apparently used to sell the rings with advertising imprints.
Dennis, nice handcuff key on your keyring. My key isn't so nice looking.
Quote from: m1898 on December 13, 2011, 06:51:38 AM
Dennis, nice handcuff key on your keyring. My key isn't so nice looking.
It works great for people with fat fingers....something one can hold on to.
I also heard that the funeral homes ran the ambulance services in many areas. That would make sense from the perspective of fleet management since the basic vehicle was the same: typically a Cadillac with the special bodywork at the back.
But yes, it could be a bit of a conflict of interest. Go pick up that cardiac case and take him to the hospital now? Or wait a few more minutes and get to do the whole funeral? Hmm, decisions, decisions....
Re. stickers: I take them off; they are usually in tatty shape to begin with, and they were not original equipment:-)
Re. dial centers: the GPO practice of having the emergency number on every dial center is very sensible, even if everyone knows it's 999 (or 911 over here). French PTT also included a bunch of other ones such as Directory inquiries, Telegrams, and so on, all 2-digit numbers. Germany typically had two emergency numbers, Fire and Police, on their dial centers. But I'd just as soon not see more advertising clutter for funeral parlors, or liquor stores that deliver, or whatever.
I'm surprised that Alcoholics Anonymous didn't do a counter-advertising thing as a sarcastic criticism of the liquor delivery ads in the dial centers: "Prevent a relapse: Don't take that first drink: call 5-4321 (or whatever)."
The local funeral home in my town STILL runs an ambulance service out of the place. kinda creepy to think about for sure...
Thank goodness us brits only have to dial 999 for ambulances!!! :D
We dial 911 for ambulances in the cities here in the US. In many rural areas the ambulances are connected with the volunteer fire departments, also 911.
In addition to the 911 dispatch centers, each local police, fire, and paramedic department has its own local 7-digit number. So in the event of a natural disaster that takes out the 911 dispatch center, you can still call for help with those local numbers.
Comes to think of it, it would be worthwhile for anyone in an area subject to natural disasters, to post those local numbers next to their phone. Also post your local police non-emergency number so you're not tempted to call the emergency number to deal with issues such as "the folks next door are having a drunken party and it's 3:00AM" or "some nitwit parked in front of my driveway."
The area where I live has only had 24 hour 911 service for the last 10 years or so. Before that, you had to call the Sheriff's office for any emergency after 5pm. The local phone book had the Sheriff's phone number printed on the cover but they never did include stickers to put on your phone.
There's actually a new "Non-emergency" number that been rolled out across England (not sure if Scotland has their own) over the past year, 101, that's for non-urgent calls that require the less-than-emergency services, a little easier to remember than the number for the local cop shops and whatnot... :D
Means I'll have to adapt my GPO dial labels to include it though... ::)
We have two non-emergency numbers here on PEI, both recently added.
In an attempt to lighten the load on emergency rooms, there is a non emergency medical number where you can talk to a nurse to discuss problems and to decide whether you should take your concern to emergency. That number is 811. This number is administered by a company in Halifax. Having called it only once, I found on that occasion it was useless - there was a 1.5 hour delay until you could speak with a nurse.
http://www.healthpei.ca/811 (http://www.healthpei.ca/811)
The Department of Highways now has a road condition number (511) where you can call to get road reports, i.e. snow coverage, traffic etc.
http://www.511.gov.pe.ca/en/
That is in addition to the usual 911 service.
Dave
Quote from: paul-f on January 20, 2011, 12:44:00 PM
Doug,
Thanks for reminding me about the dial rings. I've pulled them off sets for years and haven't paid much attention to them. I found several hanging on a bracket in the basement. It's interesting to see the variation in shapes, materials and topics.
I don't think I've ever seen an aftermarket dial ring designed for anything but Western Electric-type dials. They wouldn't work on an AE dial. Anyone have samples?
Good point. I have removed a few WE-style rings from AE phones. They didn't look right.
Here are photos of a few that were designed for AE dials...