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What Are Your Best Bargains Ever In Phones?

Started by HobieSport, May 06, 2009, 11:18:40 PM

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HobieSport

Quote from: Dennis Markham
I found a Mediterranean Blue 500 in great shape at an Antique Fair for $35.

I guess y'all saw this one recently:
http://tinyurl.com/d6var8

Dennis Markham

That's really not a bad price for that phone with the gray straight cord.  Looks like the first bidder and last bidder were one in the same.

HobieSport

I just got a 12/55 black 500 in good shape for 10 bucks.  I won't know if it's matching dates 'till it arrives.  I'm happy. 8)

Dan

Post pics please, I love the old black metal dial ones.
"Imagine how weird telephones would look if our ears weren't so close to our mouths." - Steven Wright

HobieSport

#19
Quote from: Dan
Post pics please, I love the old black metal dial ones.

Here's a pic.  Just your standard mid-50s 500. 8)

I also prefer the black metal dials over the plastic ones, not only because they're older, but I just think they look a lot more classy on the black phones.  Though lately I've been getting some newer 500s with the plastic dials from the later 1960s and even the earlier (pre-modular) 1970s, as I figure they may become somebody's birthday/anniversary phones someday. :)

AET

Even if I coulda hung onto these phones a few years earlier in life.  I know my parents had like 5 in our house and they tossed them all.  I think they were all beige ones however.  And I also remember, being a very mechanical little kid, taking them apart with the screwdriver set when I Was about 5.  And oh, the garbages and such just full of dial telephones.  It makes me sick just thinking what i could have saved!
- Tom

Sargeguy

I have had a few good deals on some common phones.  The best was an eBay auction of handsets that I won for $16.  The picture was blurry, but looked interesting.  The lot included:
Pristine seamless E-1 handset with cord
Pristine early F-1 with cord
Pristine G-1 with cord
Graybar G-6
WECO-G-10
AE handset with brass retainers(?)
AE transmitter and reciever elements
Operators headset

The shipping was free and I sold about $40+++ worth of stuff so far from that lot while keeping the E-1, F-1 and G-1.
Greg Sargeant
Providence, RI
TCI /ATCA #4409

AET

Well, I just paid about 5 dollars for
Rose-Beige 500 - 1959
Black 500, no handset - 1963
Beige 500 - 1968
Starlite - 1975
ITT Trimline
Also, came with two of the old cordless phones with the space-age telescopic antennas. 
- Tom

bingster

Was it rose beige or light beige, Tom?  Rose beige was discontinued in 1957.
= DARRIN =



Dan

Was at the Springfield Ohio phone show today (and antique show) and bargains were to be had everywhere. I got a pink WE500 from 1965, all dates matching for $8. Two NOS WE 500  fat cords (white) for $2 each. A hardwired Ivory princess for $2. My favorite find was a match to my first  black WE500. I bought the phone two years ago for $2. It had the straight receiver cord CUT OFF and no handset.

Well luck was on my side as I found a black G1 handset, six hole cap, WITH ATTACHED  original STRAIGHT  cord . All dates matching from 3-55 in a bag marked $2!. I went home and flipped over my phone, and it was dated 3-55.
"Imagine how weird telephones would look if our ears weren't so close to our mouths." - Steven Wright

McHeath

I think I am jealous!

No, I am jealous.

Lucky dog you. :)

foots

If I can get in touch with Dan/Panther I'm supposed to buy his green Starlite phone for $5.00 and that'd be my best bargain ever except for my free phone which doesn't count.
"Ain't Worryin' 'Bout Nothin"

rp2813

No doubt about it, I gotta check me out some phone shows and go prepared to pick up a few things.  It sounds like you can find a primo 500 or related parts at bargain prices, presumably because many collectors still don't consider them all that collectible.

Ralph

Ralph

foots

Well, I said my free phone doesn't really count, but I just got another free one, and I didn't even have to leave home to get it. On Sunday I'm just chilling out while waiting around to go to work and strangely, my brother's father-in-law stops by. I ask him what brings him by and he hands me a dusty red Carlson Stromberg 500. He said he remembered me mentioning that I tinker with old phones a while back and he picked this up at a garage sale. I asked him how much - he said just take it. After thanking him, I went inside and immdediately pulled it apart. Its a hardwired model from 1975. After a good washing and some polishing this sucker is looking quite nice. The only bad things are the dial is a bit sticky and the wall cord don't match - it's white. I only mention this phone because I wasn't looking for another phone, wasn't planning on buying another phone (for a while) or even thinking about a phone and it just shows up at the house, for free. I don't think I could find a better deal than that. I'll try to borrow a camera and post pictures this weekend.
"Ain't Worryin' 'Bout Nothin"

gpo706

My first: an "autoparts" centre I guess you folks would call it, just up the road from me was now closed and being gutted internally for convertion to another use, through the demolition site fencing I sees an old black bakelite sitting on a shelf at the dispatcher booth.

I asked one of the workers if I could buy it, he said it belonged to the post office, and no-one could sell it, I then seen all the skips (dumpsters) lying round the corner full of debris. (gulp).

Later at the following weekend I scaled a 10 foot spiked gate armed with a set of my dads wire cutters and a shopping bag, cut it out and errrr, "rescued" it.

It was a 332, and my first acquisition, I started to tinker with it at home and it was chock full of brick dust, dirt, probably asbestos particles etc.

The dial was jammed solid, I just took it all apart and cleaned with a paintbrush.

Of course I couldnt get it to work this being 1984 ish and me being 15 and knowing nothing about telecoms, but I still have it here as a central battery receiver connected to a linesmans test phone, Its not the prettiest example having had a hard working life, but I wouldn't sell it for the world.

Since then, well thats a another story between me and my psychiatrist and the accountant in bankrupcy...
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"