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Who was THE MOST AVID ANTIQUE PHONE COLLECTOR THAT MAY HAVE EVER LIVED ?

Started by unbeldi, November 14, 2014, 11:29:24 AM

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Jim Stettler

a thousand telephones is a nice size collection but not that big. I know many collectors (including myself) that have well over 1,000 phones accumulated. Most of the regulars at the KS show have well over 1,000 phones in their "spares" (that is why there are always great deals in KS).

As an experiment guess how many old phones you have, then walk thru your house and start counting all of the old telephones . You will probably be surprised at the amount, You shouldn't divulge the actual amount to you significant other, however you can post it to this "support" group.
Jim S.

When I moved in 2000 I had all but a few telephones packed and a list server post caused me count the "around 20" telephones that were still unpacked. "Around 20" turned out to be about 135.
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

paul-f

It's good to hear from you, Jim.

You remind me of the dark side of phonitis -- denial.

I'm one fo the ones who doesn't want the world to know how many phones I have.   That's largely because I don't want to know how many phones I have.   ::)
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

.

ESalter

Russ, you mentioned payphones.  You're very right about most payphones being made from mixed up parts.  I can say out of around 200 singleslot payphones I've had or handled, not a single one still had all of its as-built components.  About the best I can hope to find is one with good original paint and "1A" or "1C" markings but D type internals.  Almost all of the dial units on the phones I have had the hook switch upgraded to microswitches instead of the "slide" type switch WE used.  About half of them have plastic validators made by Mars Electronics to replace the old WE 20A chutes.  Of the ones that have good original marking, very few have any other component in them anywhere that also match that date.  Somewhere there was a mass of parts and they(I don't know if it was NW Bell, US West, or Qwest) used them to build up a bunch of phones.  Tons of them look to be TT sets that were converted from rotary.

Anyway, I got a good chewing a few weeks ago from a guy on Ebay about a payphone I was selling.  I listed it as a Qwest Blue Western Electric Bell System 1D2 Payphone.  The message I got sounded like he was ready to burn me at the stake because I used the words Qwest and Bell System in the same sentence.  He actually told me I should call it a "contaminated" payphone.  The phone itself WAS a WE/BS marked phone.  It had the usual upgrades that were made over time.  I got it from a telco guy, he got it from Qwest.  He said right before they got out of the payphone business they offered phones to their employees painted in their choice of one of several different colors, one of which was Qwest blue, which is the color this one was.  I don't see how I was misrepresenting anything, but this guy sure seemed to think I was.

---Eric

baldopeacock

speaking of collections - didn't Mo's Picturephone go to the JKL Museum?   Was looking at that from the link a few posts earlier, there's one like hers pictured.