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What Was Your First Phone?

Started by HobieSport, May 11, 2009, 06:03:06 PM

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Dennis Markham

The first telephone I remember was in the old farm house we lived in in  rural Michigan.  My first memory of that was probably about 1957.  We had a black desk phone that had a crank on the front.  We had a party line.  I remember my father complaining about a nosy neighbor listening in on his calls.  The phone was probably a Leich.  Later after we moved to the City we had a beige 554 hanging in the hallway.  That must have been the basic color.  In the mid 1960's my older, teen-aged sisters got their own phone with their own phone line.  It was a black 500 with a metal finger wheel.  Toward the end of the 1960's we moved once again, this time to Florida where we had real modern phones.  Trimlines with rotary dials.  I don't recall a touch tone until probably 1970.

The first "vintage" phone I bought off eBay was a yellow 500 (that I've since re-sold).  That started the sickness..........

Dan/Panther

Hobiesport;
I was 18 months old in that photo.
Mature for my age  ::) ::) ::)

D/P

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

Bill Cahill

Little dip pan danny at 4. How cute!
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Bill Cahill

"My friends used to keep saying I had batts in my belfry. No. I'm just hearing bells....."

benhutcherson

We never had any telephones of note when I was growing up-any Bell System phones that may have been around were long gone by the time I was old enough to remember. My grandmother, however, to this day still has a beige AT&T 554 hanging in her kitchen that I can remember from a long time back.

The first telephone in my collection was an AE40. Several years ago, a great aunt with no children died. She left everything to the two nephews who looked after her. They took everything out of the house that they wanted, and opened it up for all of the other family to come in and take whatever they wanted of what was left. I found the AE40 neglected on a shelf down in the basement-it was absolutely filthy, and had a stuck dial. The time I spent cleaning it up and getting it working got me hooked. That was 4 1/2 years ago, and, as they say, the rest is history.

rp2813

Earliest phone I remember was a 202 in the den at the house my parents bought brand new in 1949.  There was another phone in the hallway niche and I think it was a 202 also but can't be sure.  The den phone was for sure bootlegged in by my dad.

Moving to the next house in 1960, the phone already there was a 302 on a long cord.  I think that same 302 remained in place when my parents got their own number turned up there.  It was a party line at first but they got rid of that whole annoyance.  I am still using that same line number now, as I've moved in to my parents' place with plans to buy my sister out of her half.  No 302's ringing on that line for the time being but I've got four 500's going instead.  One of them has the original alphanumeric number card issued for this line back in 1960.

I guess you could say my first collector phone was a plastic case 302 my dad got from work I think, and bootlegged in upstairs.  It was the phone my sister and I used for many years growing up and I sort of claimed it.  It had an original brown cloth cord and #4 dial, which I eventually placed in my 202.  That dial took so much abuse with both of us forcing the fingerwheel to return faster as we tried to dial in to radio contests outside of our area code.  A testament to WE's design-for-abuse approach.  I don't know what happened to that 302.  It had a flaw in the case and the plastic ones I have now don't have any case issues.  I guess I passed it along at some point.

Ralph
Ralph

dsk

#20
Our first telephone was an EB 1953 (Elektrisk Bureau (Norway))

Later I got 2 magneto versions of the same telephone (EB54) and some field line.

Then the young telphone man was dicovered.
When the later ultramodern electronic EB 1967 was more common, we got our finger in one of this type
Tis was equipped with dynamic transmitter and an amplifier with 2 transistors. Due to the high cost of theese expensive transistors the hoockswitch became extensive, and made it possible to use the transmitter to produce a warbeling beep as a ringing signal.
This was the last model witch were supplied as a part of the subscription, in 1982? the pressbutton phone came, and you had to pay extra, shortly after the phoes was sold by different supliers.

If you have any questions about Norwegian phones, please send me a mail and let my try to help.
dsk

rp2813

Welcome to the forum, dsk.  Those are a couple of interesting phones. 

Ralph
Ralph

mienaichizu

we have another new member, welcome dsk, where are you from?

Jester

The first one I can remember was a black 500 in my parents' bedroom.  I think it had a metal dial.  My first telephone & my first collector phone were one & the same--this WE 251 I bought when I was a senior in high school.  This was when the bug bit.  In fact, the second phone I added to my collection-- the 1950 500 I posted a pic of last night-- was sitting right next to this one.  See the 251 thread, as I will post some pictures of some interesting features on this phone.
Stephen

Bill Cahill

Welcome, dsk. Interesting phone you have there.

I'd like to have that other phone. Is that an early 500?
I think an aunt of mine once had one.
Bill Cahill

"My friends used to keep saying I had batts in my belfry. No. I'm just hearing bells....."

dsk

#25
Quote from: mienaichizu on May 20, 2009, 10:14:32 AM
we have another new member, welcome dsk, where are you from?

Thank you.
I am born in Oslo Norway (Oslo has reverce dial just as NZ)
Now  Im living 35 km North of Oslo in a Wally kaled Hakadal, here They got autamtik excange in 1969, so lokaly it is wery few rotary dials. It is still a few 1967 models in use. (1967 add) ;)
This phone was the first with transistors, and a dynamic microphone put in productian i know about.  Theese dynamic capsuls had a quality witch mad them popular among HiFi entusiasts for use as a hi note element in loudspeakers.  Since the transistors were extremely expensive the cradleswitch became large in hence to use them both in ringer circuit, and as microphone amplifier. The casing is made in cooperation with LM Ericsson. (Dialoque)

The fist push-button phones came experimental in use as late as 1975, 10yrs later the monopoly was a history...

Las year I joined  C*NET :) and now I may call a lot of others around the world for free; using my old phones, and using the old dial numbering system, and talk about e.g. telephones etc.

dsk

bellsystemproperty

I never lived in the Bell System days, so

1) It was a Ge tt desk phone. I still have it somewhere, but now we use all rotary phones, not a single touchtone phone connected.

2) first phone would be a Verizon Razr, but you could also count a crappy ATT Trimline 210.

3) My very first rotary phone would be donut phone from WE, but my first general use rotary phone would be my black AE80.
I'll post some pictures later when I find my camera.

deedubya3800

Being younger than most around here, my answer is probably going to be markedly different.

1. The first phone I remember us having was a rust orange Touch-Tone Trimline on the wall in the kitchen. This was about 1981. It was leased from SWB, but I don't remember if she kept it after the option or not. I just know we didn't still have it in 1987.

2. The first phone I remember my family buying of their own was some clunky GE cordless set in the late 80s. I remember we could tune that thing in on the FM radio!

3. The first vintage phone I bought was a 1970 Stromberg-Carlson 500D when I was in high school, but I didn't catch the actual collector's bug until last July when I bought a 5302 at an indoor flea market in Omaha.

Owain

1) Your first family phone(s) that you remember as a wee one.

We didn't have a phoneline when I was very young, but I had a toy plastic red Trimphone, like this:

(image from telephonesuk.co.uk)

We had a telephone kiosk just outside the house, which smelt a bit. I can remember when they changed it from 2p to 5p; all the 2ps we'd saved for the phone were suddenly useless.

Kindergarten had a 300-series on a shelf over the sinks we used to wash our painting things in.

(image from telephonesuk.co.uk)

2) The first phone that you bought new when we were suddenly allowed to purchase our own, and

a red 'Betacom Flamingo' which was the UK approved version of the US 'Lark', I believe. similar to:

(image from Peter Walker's Phone Pages)

3) The first phone that you bought as a "collector", not including phones inherited or given to you, but the first older phone or two that you bought from choice.

A Tele 332, similar to the 2nd image.

wds

I think our first phone was a 500 model phone.  My parents grew up in Kentucky, without electricity, phones, or running water.  My dad's first phone was actually my first phone also.  Even though I was pretty young, I distinctly remember that our phone was a party line, and it was usually pretty hard to get a dial tone because of the neighbors.  We didn't have a whole lot of use for a phone even then, since a lot of my relatives didn't have phones either. 
Dave