Christmas Gift of a Phone Booth

[GenieMiller]

Hello everyone! I am completely new to this group but my husband and I now own a wooden Telephone Booth. We have not seen it in person and only have a photograph (link/photo at bottom) My parents-in-law acquired it from a friend of the family for us ;because, we are big fans of Doctor Who. Whom if you didn't know travels through time and space in a Police Bo>< (which is also a phone booth for calling the police) <been on the air in England since 1963>

So they thought this phone booth would be our TARDIS (AKA the Police Bo><)

So now I want to try and find out some information on this phone booth.  I have searched the web and only found booths that have folding doors. I haven't found any like this. I am hoping to get the booth by this weekend and have more photos then. Plus possibly some more info from the previous owner, but I would love any input you all can give on dating this booth and giving a round about origin.

[AE_Collector]

Hi and welcome to the rotary forum. My wife is a HUGE an of Doctor Who and I have watched a number of the episodes with her. I think the new series is a colaboration between BBC and Canada's CBC. I just wiki'd it to see that it was just the 2nd & 3rd series since it was revived in 2005 that had some money conributed towards production by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (I am in Vancouver Canada).

I don't specifically recognise the booth you are acquiring but indoor wooden booths frequently had solid doors as does yours. Outdoor booths were more likly to have the bi-fold type doors.

Terry

[dpaynter1066]

Is it possible that this was a custom made booth from a carpenter and not a Telco issue booth?  I would expect maker logos somewhere in or on it if its a commercially made booth.

[Wallphone]

A few years ago in the TCI Singing Wires Journal there was a picture of Vern in a booth very similar to this one. Maybe Vern will have some info on this.
Doug Pav

[GG]

Looks to me that it's a custom-made booth.  For example as might have been hand-built for a pub or some other place where it needed to match the interior decor.  It may have interior refinements that aren't present in ordinary telephone booths, for example I've seen another custom installation that had a corkboard on the wall for posting notices and suchlike. 

Re. Dr. Who: over the holidays I happened to see the "2150" movie on TV.  I vaguely recall first having seen it when I was a little kid.  Seen now, it's clear the writers thought pretty deeply about the whole issue of hostile ETs, at a level we are now also seeing from people in and around NASA in the discussion about whether it's wise for us to "broadcast" high-powered signals into space in the hope of getting a reply. 

The Daleks are a great metaphor for a bunch of things, two come to mind at the moment:  One, cellphone audio.  Two, immortality via nanotechnology (useful when debating adherents of Eric Drexler or Ray Kurzweil). 

Re. turning that custom-built phone booth into a TARDIS:  it may be too valuable as it is, to paint it blue or make any other major modifications.   I'd keep it as-is, and custom-build a TARDIS from scratch.  Line the interior with mirrored tiles to produce the optical illusion of an enormous space that stretches out in all directions.  The effect would be enhanced by the way the space is lit on the inside.   As for putting a telephone inside, seems to me a red or blue or black 706 would be about right.

[GenieMiller]

Don't worry my husband I already decided that we are not going to paint this booth blue. I would rather make one from scratch.  We where planning on just saying it's Romana's TARDIS. (She is a time lady from Tom Baker's era of Dr who)

[twocvbloke]

As for putting a telephone inside, seems to me a red or blue or black 706 would be about right.

Nah, I'd say a GPO711 or 741 would be better, mounted on one side of the booth, maybe with a mocked-up "A-B" coinbox...