Telephone Collectors International (TCI) Announces new membership rates for 2014
Generally, a $5.00 across the board reduction to regular (Electronic) and postal membership rates. Also, no additional cost for international postal mailing.
Telephone Collectors International Inc., (TCI) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. The goals of TCI include the preservation of telecommunications history by encouraging its members in their quests to collect phones and documents related to telephony.
Although the Classic Rotary Phone Forum is not connected with TCI or any other telephone club, many phone club members are also participants in the forum.
TCI publishes two newsletters.
Singing Wires, which is published monthly, and
Switcher's Quarterly, which is published four times a year.
Singing Wires has articles and information on phones, phone companies, phone practices, and phone shows. It is always loaded with pictures and has want ads. Singing Wires has a companion "Bonus Pages" section that is available to those with the ability to download them electronically. The Bonus Pages section is usually as large as the regular Singing Wires section.
Switcher's Quarterly has articles, photos and diagrams that are of interest to all the folks that are into all aspects of key systems, switchboards, central offices, and even the new stuff like C*Net.
With the newsletters, you have a chance to read the articles and get information that you might not otherwise be able to find.
TCI operates two websites to support our goals. The first is
www.telephonecollectors.org (http://www.telephonecollectors.org) which is the general website for the club and has all the information about us, becoming a member, and a member's access area for downloading monthly and quarterly newsletters and search the membership database.
The second website
www.telephonecollectors.info (http://www.telephonecollectors.info) contains thousands of telephone documents, all of which have been scanned and made available by volunteer TCI members. It is the TCI resource that is often mentioned here in this forum. Note that this vast resource is provided by members' dedicated efforts, and most of the resources are available to anyone at any time, regardless of membership.
So here's the good part:Due to the continued support of our members, the board has decided to reduce the membership rates for calendar year 2014. This reduction, for now, is for the year 2014. We will evaluate our dues structure again next year but for now we are very happy to announce this rate reduction.
Regular Electronic membership - $20.00
1. This gives full access to the member's only area of the TCI website, which includes a searchable membership database, and access to ALL past issues of Singing Wires and Bonus Pages in electronic form. This is a $5.00 reduction from last year.
Switcher's Quarterly: Add $5.00 for the year.
U.S. or International Mail (No extra for international) Add $11.00 per Year. Notice that if you get the postal membership, you will have the same on-line access that the regular membership has, but the Bonus Pages are only available online.
For you younger folks under 18, we offer a
junior membership for $10.00. Switcher's Quarterly and postal mail rates would still add on to these for $5.00 and $11.00, repectively.
Here are some links:
Sample November, 2012 Singing Wires:
http://telephonecollectors.org/JournalsSamples/2012-11sw.pdf (http://telephonecollectors.org/JournalsSamples/2012-11sw.pdf)Sample November, 2012 Bonus Pages:
http://www.telephonecollectors.org/JournalsSamples/SW_2012_11_Part_2.pdf (http://www.telephonecollectors.org/JournalsSamples/SW_2012_11_Part_2.pdf)Sample Switcher's Quarterly April, 2013:
http://www.telephonecollectors.org/JournalsSamples/SQ_2013_04_Part_1.pdf (http://www.telephonecollectors.org/JournalsSamples/SQ_2013_04_Part_1.pdf)Switcher's Quarterly April, 2013, Part II:
http://www.telephonecollectors.org/JournalsSamples/SQ_2013_04_Part_2.pdf (http://www.telephonecollectors.org/JournalsSamples/SQ_2013_04_Part_2.pdf)To join or renew, go to this web page where you will find links to sign up using PayPal, or you can fill out a printed form and mail in your application with a check.
http://telephonecollectors.org/member.htm (http://telephonecollectors.org/member.htm)_________________________________________________
1 All Prices are in US Dollars
Well, now-a-days the old menu's for under 12 don't work with me. So this is nice, half price!
And thanks for reminding me!
Ben.
Just renewed, thanks again Phil.
Ben
Any current members who have not renewed please don't forget to renew at this new lower price. For any and all new members to the forum, this is an unbelievably great deal. Twenty bucks for a year. That's a great deal, and you get access to all the past Singing Wires issues via the member's only area in the TCI website.
Please take a moment to look at the first post in this thread that has samples of Singing Wires and the bonus pages. It is the finest collectors journal we know of, and each month has extremely relevant and timely information written by those who really know the details and history. TCI is not just a US club. We have members from all over the world and we try to keep good information out there on phones and equipment of international origin. Many knowledgeable authors that also participate here in the Classic Rotary Phone forum have contributed articles and countless hours of dedicated detailed research to their published work. You might recognize Paul-F and Remco Enthoven as a couple of regular contributors.
For an additional $5.00 per year, there is a second quarterly journal called Switcher's Quarterly. You saw recent posts here by Phil, Weco355aman, and his wonderful switching equipment? Phil has contributed to Switcher's quarterly, and he and Paul-F are just a couple of examples of the depth of knowledge not only available here, but in print via these great publications.
To give you an idea of the work TCI is doing to preserve the information, you should take a look at the TCI document library. 100% volunteer work that is funded only by donations and the dedication of others. The best part is that TCI opens this to everyone, and there is no additional charge to access the site or the thousands of items in there, right down to wiring diagrams for the most common legacy phones, right up to some of the most sophisticated key systems and pbx diagrams out there.
You really should join or renew. Just go to the beginning of this thread and you will find links to joining and links to sample news letters.
Dennis Markhams's Classic Rotary Phone Forum is not a part of TCI and should not be construed to be so. However, Dennis has given his permission for TCI to post this reminder, as it is a benefit to all phone collectors. TCI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.