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How many of you actually use your antique phones?

Started by BDM, September 21, 2008, 04:19:03 PM

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So, how many are actually using their phones?

I have no modern phones
several at any given moment
Maybe one hooked up, when I'm in the mood
Hardly ever. Besides, they scare the kids
Heck no! Are you kidding? Display only!!

AET

Hobie, the king of black telephones is suggesting a YELLOW phone to me? 

Call Walter Kronkite!!  Hell has just frozen over!!!!
- Tom

bingster

Quote from: rp2813 on April 04, 2009, 01:53:13 PM
For the garage the perfect phone would be a model number I'm not sure of.  This would be the basic small box with (probably) 5H dial on top and a hanger for the handset. 
That's the 201 or 211 hanging handset.  When I think of garage phones, I always think of the little steel wall phones from the 1920s.

Quote from: rp2813 on April 04, 2009, 01:53:13 PM
The beige phone had a very grimey garage-y look to it before I cleaned it up.  Now it's looking more like a bedroom phone.  Like I said, I never liked beige before, but it cleaned up so well that it looks kind of attractive and I think I'll hang onto it for a while. 
It's funny, Ralph... It often works out that way when collecting phones.  We think a particular color or model is homely until we get one and clean it up.  Then our opinion changes.
= DARRIN =



Dan

I've learned to love theWE 500  beige and white ones. I can't find an old ivory to complete "bland" trio!

It is funny how your impression of a phone changes once you put a little sweat  into it.
"Imagine how weird telephones would look if our ears weren't so close to our mouths." - Steven Wright

McHeath

I love my ivory 500 that I bought new in 84', something about that color really appeals to me.  But I know that lots of folks think it's kinda dull, but hey I was not exactly Mr. Flaming Interesting at any point in my life.
;)

AET

I have a white 500 and a light gray 554 and like both phones very much, besides their notorious yellowing which I will address when I have more money!
- Tom

rp2813

Thanks Bing, now at least I know the model number of phone I should look for to get a real garage type phone in the workshop.

Ralph
Ralph

Greg G.

#81
I have 3 out of 12 hooked up currently.  The work horse is the one on my computer desk, a 2-56 black 500.  I had been using the Dutch PTT because I liked the sound of the dial, but a friend said the audio wasn't good on his end, sounded very "tinny", although he was coming through ok.  What looks like a nick in the handset is just a smudge.

In the second pic, the two on the right are hooked up via a Y adapter, although I don't use them much.

I have to say that now that I have been using a "real" phone, I like the feel of actually dialing a number, cradling the handset between my head and shoulder, and throwing it back on the cradle when I'm done.  
The idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane.
- Mike Row
e

foots

I'm jealous of that yellow 500. As far as phones I have in use, I have a green Starlite, courtesy of Dan/Panther, my black mostly 1960 Signal Corps 500, my dark yellow ITT 500 (in a spare room of course), and my Stromberg Carlson 1243 which doesn't ring as I have not yet installed the straight line ringer yet. I'd like to use my green Starlite wall phone, but have not been able to find  the correct wall jack to mount it to.
"Ain't Worryin' 'Bout Nothin"

Greg G.

#83
Quote from: foots on July 08, 2009, 05:04:40 AM
I'm jealous of that yellow 500.

It's a 79 model, Stromberg-Carlson.  I was surprised to find a relatively late model still hard-wired, or was that still common in the late 70s?  The green one is also SC, 71, the black is a WE 62, not sure what year the PTT is.
The idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane.
- Mike Row
e

jsowers

Coincidentally, I just last week got Touch-Tone phone service. I'm not kidding! I've lived in the same house since 1985 and I had a choice of rotary or Touch-Tone then, and rotary was $1 a month less, so that was fine with me. I had a very modest phone collection then and they were all rotary models I got at garage sales. My local telco is a mom and pop kind of business, in business since the late 1800s, and they have always been slow to change. We had a party line at home until about 1983. Finally last month they got rid of rotary-only service and started charging about $7 more a month. Yipe! Also added was a wider radius local calling scheme, that makes no difference to me. Of course, the rotary phones still work, but now all my 2500s and 2702s can make calls too. I did change my modem to tone for my dialup internet.

I still have only rotary phones hooked up. Nothing newer than the early 1980s. An ivory soft plastic WE 554 in the kitchen, a white WE 702 in the master bedroom complete with transformer, a moss green modular WE 500 in the living room, a beige S-C 554 in the garage, a moss green ITT 554 and a 302 in the basement, and a brown ITT Slenderet in the spare bedroom. When the phone rings at my house, you can REALLY hear it. I did disconnect the ringer in the 302, but the rest ring fine. The sound of a 500 set ringing is music to my ears.

I also did my own phone wiring in the walls when I built my house. At one time I had an extension in the greenhouse out back, but the sunlight and moisture do awful things to phones and the buried wire, so I took that out. Maybe one day I'll change all my phones to more valuable models, but I have visions of knocking a 500U off the night table or the housing to a 554 getting sun fade in the garage, so I'm leaving it the way it is for now.
Jonathan

BDM

--Brian--

St Clair Shores, MI

jsowers

Quote from: BDM on July 08, 2009, 09:03:17 AM
Question, where is it you live??

Lexington, North Carolina. The telco is Lexcom, formerly Lexington Telephone Company. Their website is http://www.lexcominc.net. Our county actually has FIVE telcos. Lexcom, Piedmont (two communities to the west), Windstream (formerly Alltel, serves Denton, NC to the south), North State (Thomasville and High Point) and AT&T, formerly BellSouth and before that Southern Bell (serves the northernmost area next to Winston-Salem). Is it any wonder we use IP telephony in the school system I work for? Years ago it also was two different area codes, 919 and 704. In the days before redial, I remember well wearing my finger out using the WATS line dialing 868-919-764-0360 to reach one of our schools.
Jonathan

foots

Brinybay, Stromberg Carlsons were hard wired into the '80s as I've got an '82 thats hard wired, but they did switch to thin flat handset cords.
"Ain't Worryin' 'Bout Nothin"

Bill Cahill

Right now, I'm using two of mine all the time. My yellow kitchen wall phone, and, my 1963 beige desk phone in the living room.
Bill Cahill

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

Phonesrfun

Most all of mine work the way they should.  I have about 90 phones in total and I always try to make sure they all work.  I have an 11-digit strowger wall phone that does not work, and I have a handfull of junkers for robbing parts that are just for parts or for doing evil experimentation on their plastic covers.

I have a 1A2 key system with a phone in my den, and I have several old phones hooked up behind a Panasonic 616.  I have a pink Princess 1960 701B (In the bedroom, of course).  I do rotate phones around when I get tired of them, or when I want to test one , etc.

I must admit, I also have a modern cordless too, and I use Vonage as my provider.  I also have a cell phone that I love to hate.

-Bill
-Bill G