(Tiny) Ingram Richardson Public Telephone Local Phone Porcelain Enamel Sign

[Sargeguy]

$175.  I now have a $300 refrigerator magnet!

[Sargeguy]

"Public Telephone" is much less common on early signs than "Pay Station" is.  The reason is that in the early days of the telephone a "Public Telephone" was a telephone that a subscriber could use for free and have the call billed to his account.  "Pay Station" referred to a phone that you needed to deposit coins into (or pay an attendant) to operate, in order to make calls that were paid for on the spot.  Interestingly, the term "Pay Station" eventually fell into disuse, and was replaced by the term "Public Telephone" while the old public telephones were superseded by pay stations.