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Turtle Lake Wisconsin - Bob Prosser Hoard of Telephones

Started by AE_Collector, January 27, 2018, 12:25:47 PM

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paul-f

Quote from: Babybearjs on January 30, 2018, 12:29:15 PM
.....and of course, its back east.... wonder how much stuff was lost to the dumpster???

It is (or possibly was) everywhere.

Ron in the Pacific northwest, Vern and Steve in the southwest, Ray in Michigan, Bruce and others in Canada, and others have shared similar stories. I was lucky enough to sniff out some small caches in rural Maine in the late 1990s.

As Jim said, persistence and luck can pay off. It's hard to believe we've found everything yet.
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

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Babybearjs

well.... I was lucky enough to catch the Surplus Center back in 1978.... got my first AE #50 for only $9.99... should have grabbed some AE 40's as well but caught those later.... got my first WE 302 for $7.99 through them too... but, those days are over... surplus center sold out all their phones and stopped carrying them... now mostly selling Ag equipment.. (and Parts) the main problem for me was that I didn't really start playing with phones until AFTER the breakup... by then all the phones had been sold off and I didn't know of any sources until I happened across Phoneco back in 1986.... and of course, the phone companies had already liquidated their inventories to Phoneco and others... it would have ben nice to walk into a electronics thrift store and find a hoard of telecom equipment at pennies on the dollar.... the closest I got was finding 5C black Vinyl spaded line cords... but then, I really wasn't looking.... other then collecting the AE 87A phones... those really did come in handy back in the day.... But, to find a whole warehouse stocked to the rafters with phones, no such luck... now to find something like that, Yes.... I can see it... thanks to Cell Phones.... so many people have dropped their landlines for portability that seeing a warehouse full phone phones could be a reality... but where... not in Idaho... at least not around here in Boise... Mountain Bell and the other must have had a policy about recycling old phones... because I'm pretty sure it all went to Denver....sad....
John

AE_Collector

Quote from: Babybearjs on January 31, 2018, 02:11:49 AM
... surplus center sold out all their phones and stopped carrying them... now mostly selling Ag equipment..

Ag....that's the Chemical Formula for Silver?

Quote from: Babybearjs on January 31, 2018, 02:11:49 AM
After the breakup... by then all the phones had been sold off
.... But, to find a whole warehouse stocked to the rafters with phones, no such luck...

Turtle Lake clearly existed long after the breakup and provided a LOT of phones to a LOT of people up until just a few years ago.

As far as I know the remaining phones went for metal recycling so not quite as bad as into the dumpster or landfill. But....they're gone none the less.

Terry

FABphones

Wall Street Journal article:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB112890280105864097

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A collector of  'Monochrome Phones with Sepia Tones'   ...and a Duck!
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Vintage Phones - 10% man made, 90% Tribble
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