Russian pay station

[rdelius]

Built by Telta in Perm.Missing all the electronics though.Built in 1993
Robby

[RDP]

Gees! Talk about utilitarian, the Russians got the market cornered on this one.
Not saying it at sorta neat though.

[Dan/Panther]

RDP;
It's hard to say which philosophy is correct, make what you need a cheaply and as well as you can, or make it fancy, compromise quality.
D/P

[Bill]

Missing all the electronics though.
Robby

In the world of pinball machines, at least, the coin mechanism is often more expensive than anything else. You may be better off to have a machine with the coin mechanism and not the electronics, than the other way around.

Bill

[GG]

You can probably build up the electronics to make that phone functional.  The Knappens (phoneco inc.) used to sell a circuit board designed to make an AE payphone work as postpay, and I'm sure it could be adapted to work with that payphone. 

That general design of payphone was pretty common in Europe: a plain rectangular box with handset hung on the side, coin slot at the top, and dial mounted in approximately the same location.   These were intended as inexpensive sets for local calls, that could be installed in larger quantities pretty much wherever needed.   Where subscriber-dialed long distance was available, more complex sets would be provided in selected locations for that purpose. 

I scratch-built a circuit to make a Japanese "pink (plastic) payphone" work in a manner similar to that of the Knappens' circuit.  You press a button to get a dial tone, then dial the number, and when the called party answers, deposit a quarter.  After the preset time limit, it beeps and you can deposit another coin to continue, or if not, it disconnects the call.  I have the whole thing here, I could take pictures and post them (not this weekend; busy...).