I know there are no stupid questions just stupid people BUT

[DebbieDoo]

lol.... .......What did the phone manufacturers do with all their old inventory once folks stopped buying the rotary's and such?  Have all of their old inventories been destroyed, sold, etc.? 

Thanks,

DebbieDoo

[twocvbloke]

Over the few years I've been on here there's been the odd few threads on such a subject, where people have come across huge stores of phones piled floor to ceiling, some put together by people who acquired them and slung them on a pile, others from the phone co's own doing but seemingly abandoned...

I think what was left was most likely disposed of by either destroying or dumping in landfill, though some enterprising phone company employees intercepted the disposal and kept them back (see the earlier threads by MagicMo for a perfect example) and years later have made for a nice income for the families who inherit such goodies...

I know that over here in the UK, GPO engineers who were removing old phones upon upgrading someone's home from say a 332 or 706 to a 746, they would state on the paperwork that the phone was disposed of, but they'd keep the phone in their possession somehowm squirrel it away somewhere, and 30 or 40 odd years later the phones appear on ebay from their family clearing out the house after a bereavement or from downsizing their home...

So there's still houses and storage units out there full of phones, it's just a case of waiting for them to be discovered, and hoping that the people who find them know what they have rather than seeing it as a pile of old junk...

[DebbieDoo]

Thanks for the information.  Can you imagine warehouses full of brand new old rotary's just sitting in there brand new boxes just waiting to be found!!

[TelePlay]

There have been posts on this forum which I can't find now showing piles of phones in a WE junk yard collected for any of several reasons that were sent to a shredder in bulk with the small pieces coming out the other end separated by metal and plastic to be reused. That's how WE controlled their phones when moving on to the next model obsoleting all that came before.

[JimH]

Reminds me of this photo from a Bell Phonecenter store from the 80s.  I'm sure they were going to be recycled.  Notice the one in mid-air!

[twocvbloke]

Notice the one in mid-air!

Reminds me of a line from The Simpsons;

"It's just a little airborne! It's still good, it's still good!!!"

[Matilo Telephones]

The PTT here in Holland sold the surplus material for scrap, to be recycled. So the were all destroyed.

But the last generation bakelite and metal phones, they sold on abroad. They found their way to the USA and were sold by Radio Shack.

Some of these found their way to other countries too. I found one in the soukh of Aleppo a couple of years back, before this world heritage site was shot to pieces and burned to the ground.

I did manage to buy a huge lot of phones from an older gentleman. He bought a lot of 1000 surplus bakelite phones from the PTT, through an intermediate trader. I got the last 100 he had left.

A lot of the plastic era phones were never turned in. They found their way to the bin, attick, 2nd hand shop, etc.

[JimH]

When I was a kid my dad bought a phone from Radio Shack that was from Holland for me and my brothers to use...it was $8.95 and had a small white button under the dial.  If you pushed it, the handset would get a dialtone like it was "off the hook".  If you lifted another phone in the house off the hook, the phone would chime. Anyone know what that little white button was for?

[Matilo Telephones]

That would make it a Standard (Standard Electric, Holland) type 1954. It is an earthing button.

[TelePlay]

Found the link with the posted video of a WE recycling center.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=7113.msg80199#msg80199

WARNING: the topic title is:  An Interesting Film (Not for the Faint of Heart!)

[Phonesrfun]

lol.... .......What did the phone manufacturers do with all their old inventory once folks stopped buying the rotary's and such?  Have all of their old inventories been destroyed, sold, etc.? 

Thanks,

DebbieDoo

Some small number of them are now in the hands of us.  Many, many got scrapped.  One collector, Ron Chrisianson of Cave Junction, Oregon has a little bit of information in his website.  See the top paragraph:

http://www.museumphones.com/facts.html

[DebbieDoo]

Such a waste of good phones!!!!!  Thanks everyone for you input.  You guys rock!!!!

[JimH]

That would make it a Standard (Standard Electric, Holland) type 1954. It is an earthing button.

What is an earthing button used for?

[twocvbloke]

Whiat is an earthing button used for?

Signalling an operator, or used on party lines to switch the line over to your phone, or on a PABX as a Recall button, etc...

[Phonesrfun]

What is an earthing button used for?

On this side of the pond we would call it a grounding button. 

Here is one earlier use:

In the US, on local battery magneto lines where there were a lot of parties on the party lines, the operator, who was also connected to the party line did not need to hear her swtichboard ring every time someone was trying to ring a neighbor.  In fact, she was connected to several different groups of lines.  Her ringer (or drop) was not connected across the line, but instead to one side of the line and to ground.  If you wanted to call the operator, you would pick up the phone and make sure nobody else was using it, or if they were, tell them you needed the line.

Once the line was free, you pressed the button which switched your magneto from bridged ringing across the line to ring instead one side to ground.  That caused a drop to drop at the switchboard and the operator would answer the call.  She could then connect your call to another party line that was somewhere else in the area, or connect you with a city operator or to long distance.

A drop was just an electromagnet with a spring loaded latch.  When ringing current was applied the electromagnet would be activated and un-latch the spring-loaded lever that would literally drop down and visually tell her that there was a call to be answered.  When she put the cord in the jack, she would also press the drop back up in its latched position for the next call.