Before there was eBay

[foots]

   Some of my phones are from e-bay, some from nearby antique shops, and others were gifts from people who have no interest in such things. It is a little difficult finding stuff of interest locally though, since I'm in South Central Bell territory.

[jiggerman]

i have yet to purchase a phone from ebay. to me, more than 1/2the fun of collecting is the hunt i love to peruse antique shops, flea markets, yard/estate sales. then when i do find something, there is usually a story behind it.
i have many collections, so my house is like the scrapbook of my life

tom...do you like to fly , is there an airport within 20miles of your house

Right on! I can get up at 5 am on a Saturday morning and drive up to Quebec City which is 175 miles away. Stop at all the yard sales and antique shops along the way. Most of the time you spend more money on gas but it sure is fun. Sometimes you do get lucky, Jiggerman

[Dan/Panther]

I've never flown, I've never been farther than probably 100 miles from home.  

Tom;
All that you've experienced and only 100 mile from your home,  can you imagine what lies at the 101 mile, and father markers.
D/P

[AET]

I love being close to home.  We are putting our house up for sale this week and we are looking at property in South Carolina and Florida.

I've never flown, I've never been farther than probably 100 miles from home. 

Tom;
All that you've experienced and only 100 mile from your home,  can you imagine what lies at the 101 mile and father mark.
D/P

[bellsystemproperty]

I usually find phones on eBay, because like McHeath, there's really no phones for sale in California, especially Petaluma. I do have some phones not from eBay, like the trash phone and one received as a gift, and then my dad found three at thrift stores in Palm Springs.

[HobieSport]

Hey Kyle, I just realized that we're practically "phone neighbors", well, a three hour drive anyway. I'm in Mendocino. Have you ever gone to the thrift stores and antique shops in Santa Rosa or in the Bay Area? I'm just curious if there are any older phones at all in your area.

[bellsystemproperty]

Matt I haven't been to any recently, but I have called the Goodwill Petaluma and the one in Santa Rosa. I asked what they do with rotary phones to make sure they don't get thrown away. The humans that worked there said that they haven't received one in years, but that if they worked they'd sell them.  The scary thing is that if they do not work, then they are sent to a recycling center. By "not working" it could be as simple as a cut cord or a miswired network, so I asked if they would hold the broken phones for me, which they refused. The thrift stores in Palm Springs seem to be much better, as I have seen phones there. The strange thing is that most of the phones there are WE although Palm Springs is GTE territory. There is a guy in Petaluma that was selling rotary phones on Craigslist, I still have his phone number but I didn't buy any.

[HobieSport]

I asked what they do with rotary phones to make sure they don't get thrown away. The humans that worked there said that they haven't received one in years, but that if they worked they'd sell them.  The scary thing is that if they do not work, then they are sent to a recycling center. By "not working" it could be as simple as a cut cord or a miswired network, so I asked if they would hold the broken phones for me, which they refused.

And they call themselves "humans"? Nay sir, they are monsters!

[bellsystemproperty]

Agreed.

[Dennis Markham]

"Before there was eBay................."  I had more money.

[Doug Rose]

Dennis....eBay is fantastic and eBay is the pits. It depends on the day. Did I get want I wanted or did I get scr....not what I expected. All in all, the good definitely outweighs the bad. I would miss it if it was gone...Kidphone

[DavePEI]

"Before there was eBay................."  I had more money.

Before there were phones, I had money, and my wife and son had a husband and father .Now they say, "Look how much of OUR money you spent on the Museum"!

Dave

[AE_Collector]

I hope to finally reclaim a little bit of my investment once I retire (soon). I hope to have the time to finally sell off some of my duplicates and downsize my collection to be closer to just the stuff I want to display instead of boxe and boxes of stuff in storage. Currently, whenever I tell someone that I have one of whatever they need it takes me months and months (sometimes years) of reminding me before I finally get around to finding it for them.

Terry

[HowardPgh]

I collected phones long before ebay existed.
In those days you used to see them at every Hamfest or flea market. Some were very expensive,  way over $20.00 for a 202 or a candlestick.
One time I put an AD in the wanted section of the newspaper.  It said "Wanted- Old Telephones call*****", people called for months after I placed the ad. I got some really interesting phones from that.
I also bought them from the ATCA classifieds. 
From that experience, I had met up with a good guy from Buffalo NY who used to comb the flea markets in the Northeast US. We traded a lot of stuff, he had an extensive collection of very early phones. He passed away back in the 90s.
I used to get some from Phoneco also.
I think Ebay has extended everyone's horizons, but it also ruined a lot of the fun of collecting. It is a two edged sword.
Howard

[southernphoneman]

i have a little ebay story for ya! i won a bid for 2 500s. a black and yellow which i had planned to restore and resale. only cost 20 bucks. here is the problem from the start. i had one of those sellers that did not want to ship the item, and he, behind my back cancelled the tranaction.it was so disappointing that right now i don t even feel like going and buying anymore 500s to restore.