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Let's see your three most favorite phones!

Started by Pourme, September 14, 2017, 06:48:07 AM

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Pourme

As collectors we love it when someone want to see our phones, we love to "show 'em off".

On this forum we love to see pictures of other's phones.

Why not show each other our three favorite, most prized phones in our collections?

Warning: This isn't easy...think about it. Let's expand it to include the possibility that some of our favorite phones, as in my case, may be a pair of phones. A short explanation as to why the chosen phones rate being on the list may be in order as well.

If you are having trouble narrowing it down to three....Give us a honorable mention phone also, this may ease the tension of making the decision!

You got it...We want to see pictures of PHONES!!!

Benny
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

Pourme

I'll start it off with mine:

In no particular order:

When I first saw the Kellogg Ashe Tray phone I was awed by the design of this phone. I know if I were alive when it came out, I'd have to have one. I knew when I saw the pictures I WOULD have one in my collection. Now that I do, It is indeed one of my favorite phones to look at and use.

Another phone that had a similar effect on me is the SC 1212 Fatboy. When I was looking for one I found the 1197a "extension" phone. They occupy a prime spot in my display and share one extension of the PBX that gives them life. I can imagine a household that had a Fatboy as their prime phone and a 1197a as the extension somewhere in the home.

Birthday phones!
Another pair that made my list is the WE 354 and 500 I keep hooked up and wired together on the wall/table next to my TV watching seat on the couch. Both have my birthday 9/5/1952 etched inside of the phones. At least some parts of the phones were made the day I was born. Fitting that they also could have been installed in one home together as extensions...in the month I was born.

Honorable mention goes to the oldest phone I have, my SC Oil Can candlestick. Even though it has 3 holes in it where someone once mounted a dial. I just love this phone! Perhaps one day I will fully restore it but for now I get a lot of pleasure from it as it is!
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

ThePillenwerfer

#2
Easy: a 232 that started life in 1936 as a 162 and which I got cheap as both the main body and base were broken, an early-'80s Ericofon which I've had from new and finally a 1969 black 746 which is the same as my family had 'til 1992.

Pourme

Those are some nice phones...Thanks for sharing them!
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

jsowers

Two of my favorite phones are favorites because they're rare and lucky finds. But one isn't rare at all. It cost me nothing and it has sentimental value.

1) Aunt Betty's AE40. She talked the installer who installed her AE80 in the early 1970s into giving her the phone, which is unusual because our local telco was always very tight with their property. She was a school media specialist (librarian) and probably said she could use it at school, but I don't think it ever got there. It had been stored on a shelf in her basement for 40 years by the time I got it and it has the dust to prove it. It's the only phone I have from my childhood. It has a party line switchhook and ringer. I can't imagine Aunt Betty on a party line.

Aunt Betty was known for two things--talking on the phone and driving her Chevrolet all over the county. She and another teacher edited a small magazine called Homespun and they routinely called and visited people afternoons and weekends to write articles and get pictures for their magazine that came out about twice a year. It was non-profit and was offered in the schools. Often it was dedicated to one community in our county and there were articles on old schools and houses in the area and what it was like living here early in the 20th century and local folklore. Late in the magazine's run, after I graduated from high school, I was the typist. It was all done on an Adler typewriter and published and bound in booket form at a local printing house. So my whole extended family was in touch with history and responsible for my collecting, Aunt Betty included.

2) My dark gray WE 554 from 10-56. It came from eBay and the seller thought it was green. They also said it belonged to an elderly man who had it since it was new, on the wall in his house. It came with lots of slopped-on paint, stickers and tape goo everywhere. It took several days to clean and polish it. I think this could be the rarest phone I own. You just don't see them. They were made only in 1956-57 or thereabouts.

3) My yellow 500 set with the straight yellow cord from 7-56. Several rare phones were made in 1956. The cords on some colors began to match and not be dark gray any more, but coil cords weren't made standard until 1957, so for a while there were matching color straight handset cords in red, yellow and dark beige. Since it was such a short time, these are hard to find. I've never seen a dark beige one. Just the handset cord.

I'm told by a fellow collector who was bidding on this yellow phone that I'm lucky to have it because he had computer problems and his bid didn't register. This was back in 2007 before most people used snipers. Luck does have a lot to do with collecting sometimes. I almost wrote that it would be impossible to find these phones today, but I have a phone collecting friend who found a yellow phone just like mine as a Buy it Now just this past August. Now that was luck.
Jonathan

K1WI

Andy F    K1WI

Doug Rose

It's like choosing your favorite child......or grandchild.....I love them all....Doug
Kidphone

Pourme

Quote from: Doug Rose on September 14, 2017, 08:03:46 PM
It's like choosing your favorite child......or grandchild.....I love them all....Doug

Doug, when I wrote this I thought about you, having recently viewing the pictures of your phone room. How could you possibly choose three phones from your enormous collection? With me it's easy. I understand your statement, completely.

Having said that I would be most interested in what phones you own that hold a special place in your heart, for what ever reason. The fact that you own and have owned as many pieces as you have makes your input particularly interesting.

Dig deep and show us the few phones you would hold closest if you had to downsize for some reason.

Benny
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

Dan/Panther

#8
pourme;

In the photo of your WE500, the handset cord looks to be a replacement or variations of the original design. Where did you get it. I made the one for my 48-500, and it turned out to look much like yours. What date is your 500 ?



D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

Pourme

The 500 is a 9/52 if you're looking at the long "collar" coming out of the handset, I did that. It was a bit rough in one spot and I was trying not to replace it I'm not home now to check it but I think I was under the impression it was possibly original. I can take another look when I get home.
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

Russ Kirk

These are tough choices.   My first two were easy, the third I changed a few times. See me in an hour or two and the third will change again.

First,  is my Western Electric NIB 3268 HTMW Autovon set.

Second, is my Automatic Electric type B, "Battleship" phone.

Third,  are my salesman samples, Western Electric and Automatic Electric; regular sets, pencil holders, music boxes.
- Russ Kirk
ATCA & TCI

Pourme

I know it's a tough choice. I see some nice phones in your pictures. I like what I can see of your display as well. Your third choice is a fine collection in its own right. Thanks for sharing, Russ!
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

Pourme

Quote from: Dan/Panther on September 15, 2017, 12:31:46 PM
pourme;

In the photo of your WE500, the handset cord looks to be a replacement or variations of the original design. Where did you get it. I made the one for my 48-500, and it turned out to look much like yours. What date is your 500 ?




D/P

Dan,

You have a good eye. Disregard my earlier comment. I was in a restaurant eating lunch and going from my failing memory. The handset cord is actually a line cord, dated '52. The piece on the handset isn't made by me at all. I once put heat shrink on one to patch it up but not this one. Oh well, getting old!
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

Greg G.

Difficult, but not impossible and even then sometimes my favorites change.
The idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane.
- Mike Row
e

TelePlay

Had to think about it for a bit but settled on these three.

1)  The 2500 Rockford Files phone for finding the phone and DTMF pad to match Jim's phone.

2)  My polished pot metal 302 for it turning out looking like chrome

3)  An AE 21 candlestick that arrived as a gutted lamp phone and finding and/or making internal parts needed to totally convert it back into a near factory built stick which included finding an period, matching AE subset and wiring it to work as an anti-side tone (using an approved AE wiring configuration) subset.

No a particular order. I like all 3 the same ignoring what what into each of them to finish each phone as pictured.