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What made you start collecting Telephones!

Started by Doug Rose, February 20, 2010, 12:06:48 PM

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Doug Rose

I have been collecting telephones for over thirty years. I also have been working in the telephone industry for the last 30 + years. My ex wife and I were walking through a flea market and there on a blanket was a manual Western Electric 302 for $5, just begging me to take him home. I got it for $3 and was one happy dude. What would now take minute, then took me hours then I got it working through trial and error. AND I mean trial and error.  I thought I was the only one whoever thought of doing this. It sat in my living room and everyone who came over remarked about it. These  were the days long before cell phones and we would wait for a call. Or call someone to call me back to make that phone ring!  From opening that 302, I caught the telephone flu and have never been able to shake it....Doug
Kidphone

AET

You know, it's a funny thing.  I am just into retro/vintage in general.  I wanted a rotary phone for my room to go along with all the other old crap in here.  I bought one, it was yellowed, so I bought another one which was near mint, and then I bought another one because it was a good deal. 

I said to myself, well, now I have enough for when I move out to have a couple in my apartment, including the 554 I knew was in a box in my garage somewheres.  Well, I came here looking for some info and 30 phones later, here I am!!!
- Tom

Dan/Panther

I've not been a serious collector for as long as I been fascinated by phones. Just the design, and quality, and variations have always interested me.
If I ever get my hands on the person that got me started collecting though...
D/P

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

foots

   I wasn't being retro so to speak, but I was looking at my high dollar cordless phone that was dead as a doornail after a whopping 3 year life span. I then thought about the old rotary dial telephones that we had and those of my grandparents and other old relatives. Those things were in their houses since my parents were kids. They were much better made than the Chinese crap sold in stores today. I've started a personal mission to kick the poorly Made in China, Indonesia, India ect... stuff out of my house and replace it with well made, high quality stuff. Once I discovered this forum, I was hooked.
"Ain't Worryin' 'Bout Nothin"

Dan

I picked up a princess beige @ a yard sale about three years ago for $2. The guy said it was a princess and it was collectible. He said it lit up too. I found this forum after looking for info how to light it up. I always liked the 500's and when I found out how many colours they came in, I was hooked.
"Imagine how weird telephones would look if our ears weren't so close to our mouths." - Steven Wright

Greg G.

Quote from: AtomicEraTom on February 20, 2010, 12:49:44 PM
You know, it's a funny thing.  I am just into retro/vintage in general.  ... Well, I came here looking for some info and 30 phones later, here I am!!!

Pretty much the same here, it's an offshoot of my general interest in antiques, except I started on Fedora Lounge.  I got to looking at the vintage phone thread and wanted a 202 w/E1 handset.  The pricing and competition on ebay was fierce for a quality phone, so I started scanning Craigslist for one or a close substitute.  I came across the NEC Type 3 in Portland and drove down and got it.  I had no idea at the time what it was, the ad only said "old phone with Asian markings".  Then I came here and learned about many other phones.  What keeps me going is they are relatively easy to work on with my limited facilities and equipment, still plenty around but not so much so that it makes the hunt interesting, and relatively affordable.
The idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane.
- Mike Row
e

Dennis Markham

#6
When I moved into my current home I did not have a land line.  I used only my cell.  But coverage was poor in this neighborhood.  I decided I better get a "real" telephone line.  In the kitchen of my "new" home was a wall jack that kind of stuck out like a sore thumb.  The previous owner had tried to hid it with a pair of copper leaves.  I had pulled them down and discovered the jack.  I decided I would start with a wall phone.  So I searched eBay for one and being a rookie I got into a bidding war over a Moss Green MODULAR 554.  I didn't know the difference.  I paid $80 for that phone plus shipping.  When I got it I immediately removed the cover and dropped it onto the floor.  A great way to start my telephone habit.  I glued the broken corner back on and loved the phone so much I wanted a desk version.  So I went back on eBay and bought one.  I think it was about $2.25 plus shipping.  Then I bought another, then another.............I started fixing them up and re-selling them.  With the proceeds I bought more.   Like rabbits they multiplied.  One person that  bought one happened to be a local phone collector named Mark Scola.  We met and exchanged info and the rest is history.  I started learning more and more about phones, decided I'd try and collect the colors of the soft plastic sets.  The snowball effect has taken place...........

Craig T

#7
Garage sales and nostalgia. At first I would clean them up (nothing like now) and sell them off. Then I got a great deal on a lot of phones on the cheap.

I cleaned them up and set up a shelf for them so I could list them one by one and sell them off. Well that never happened... they looked great and never made it off the shelf. I have narrowed my focus and I fix up and sell off most of my modular phones to help buy the ones I want.

Now a 12 step program could not keep me away from vintage telephones  :)

Phonesrfun

My story goes way back to the early '60's.  Remember the Bullwinkle show and Mr. Peabody's "Way-Back Machine"?

My neighbor and I got a couple of "illegal" 500's that each of our fathers had hooked up as extensions in the house.  We ran a wire between the houses, and with a lantern battery we had our own phone "system".  The wire was really about 100 chuncks of extension cords and other random wires all spliced together, and oh you would not believe the noises those splices made when they got wet!

Eventually, we talked a lineman out of an entire piece of used drop wire that ran the entire length without any splicing, and we found some old magneto phones at antique shops so that we could ring each other with the magnetos.  Later, we hooked a friend to our system that lived a whole block down the street and ran the wire along about 6 different fences and over a vacant lot to his house.

It just never stopped.  I collected phone related odds and ends for years and wound up tossing most of it out over the ensuing years, but I still kept a few items.

About 5 years ago, I decided to look on line and found quite a bit, including the TCI and ATCA websites and their listservers.  Last May, there was a reference to this forum posted on one of the listserves, and so I decided to see what this one was all about.  I was kind of getting tired of the know-it-all's and the bashing going on in the listserves and this wound up being a real breath of fresh air.

I can honestly say that I participate here far more than anywhere else in all of intenet-land, although I am a member of both the phone clubs.

This is a wonderful place, and phones are a great hobby.

I now have about 100 phones, a couple of PBX's a switchboard, and I have been working on a Step-by-Step switch demo.
-Bill G

AET

I started at the fedora lounge but the pompous to nice person ratio is way higher than here.
- Tom

JorgeAmely

In my case it was a who. Dennis Markham. It is all his fault.
Jorge

Doug Rose

Keep them coming guys and gals...this is good stuff....Doug
Kidphone

bellsystemproperty

I've told my store before, but I'll tell it again. About a year ago we went to Staples to replace the phone that broke. We got a very poorly made Trimline. The thing that bothered me most was the ringer. It had three different sounds, all of which were horrible. I Googled the manufacturer and stumbled upon the donut phone from Western Electric. (it's my avatar). After that I became interested in the Automatic Electric 80, which was my second phone. From there 500's and more. Then I found this site where there are other obsessed people like me.  ;D ;D ;D

Greg G.

Quote from: AtomicEraTom on February 20, 2010, 06:31:21 PM
I started at the fedora lounge but the pompous to nice person ratio is way higher than here.

That's why I left FL.  Glad I'm not the only one that felt that way.
The idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane.
- Mike Row
e

AET

Yeah, there is maybe 5 people from there, not including you, that I am fond of, but other than that, I felt like they were all looking down their noses at me.  I don't know why they think their crap don't stink.

Quote from: Brinybay on February 20, 2010, 11:43:39 PM
Quote from: AtomicEraTom on February 20, 2010, 06:31:21 PM
I started at the fedora lounge but the pompous to nice person ratio is way higher than here.

That's why I left FL.  Glad I'm not the only one that felt that way.
- Tom