I have been collecting payphones for years and have wanted to be able to place them all at one place as one large display. I decided the best way was to build a building to house them all. Since I have property I had the space. The building has been built by the Amish I also had the building be off grid it is powered by solar cells. I have spent the last few months finishing the inside,i am now readdy to start mounting the phones. So here we go. This is the inside of the building.
All lighting is solar power, heat is propane and kerosene. I have spent a lot of time acquiring 148A backboards to mount the later telephones on. I also decided to mount strips of poplar attached to studs to support the weight and mange the amount of holes drilled.
A sign collection will also be added to this project as public telephone signs were where payphones were. Here you see the start of mounting the backboards.
Lots of things to think about and consider, I mounted the backboards then realized they were to close together and that there was no room for switch hooks and handsets. So I took them down and moved them over.
Now it was time to start to mount payphones, so what do I mount first, how do I categorize them,how to proceed? Sounds simple but it's not. You mount the backboards and strips, then what about phones with top signs? Did I build a big enough building? I am thinking I did not. So now I am mounting phones.
Its a good start Jim....I can't wait to see the finished room....Doug
Complete wall of 190 series payphones, I have discovered more since I finished this,but its a good start. Note the two 198G's at the end. Rare phones.
Incredible display, Jim!!! 8)
Please, keep us updated as you progress. I am already stupefied... Looking forward to more!
Best regards!
I hope the spacing is the limit of any problems. Nice display so far
The outside back of the cabin where the solar panels are located. This will also be the place where I put some outdoor phone booths at some point. I have already poured a slab and installed one.
I have been collecting payphones since 1987 and have them stored all over the place, in sheds and in a barn. It has been a adventure digging them out and remembering what I have. I was a payphone installer and installed and removed a lot of payphones,they are heavey and moving them wears you out. but at this point I have it down to a art. here are pictures of the ones I have dug out.
more phones
Do you have a switch or channel bank or something to operate them too?
I do not, as a installer I spent years making them work which involved everything from climbing the pole and hanging the drop,doing slabs, to CO card replacement. I also worked on all types such as prepay,postpay, dial tone first, coin first, smart phones all the AT&T public payphone products and payphone controllers. Today I own a company called Combined Public Communications which is mostly corrections public phones. Some payphones still, but mostly jail phones in ten states. I don't really have that much desire to make them work at this point but at some time in the future that may change. I spend all day now making phones work and have for 38 years. But that said one of the reasons that I am mounting the phones on the strips of wood out from the wall is I can easily install wire if I wish to in the future.
The phone on the left with the top sign is a 166G only one known to exist. I will show in dept pictures on some of these at a later date as this project progresses.
There are 3 50A's in this picture and one 102.
I am off to work on this project today, more moving and mounting of phones I will post more pics later. Also added a few signs need to get that going.
I focused today on mounting all two piece W/E payphones. manuals and pre-pay.
I also mounted the 50A's and some rare handset models,like the 169G all the way on the right.
Stopped at the barn to look for top signs and thought i would take so picks of future projects.
Many years ago myself and two other collectors purchased a load of old payphones from the Germantown Phone Company in New York here are the leftovers from it.
There was one crate we found that had over 250 two piece hooks.
Another shelf of parts,note the 191E backboard in the picture way to the right. I also found 177G parts up there today.
Very odd single slot W/E in this pic. Bronze front.
Pile of tops many with cast coin gauges. All from New York.
Can you spot what is special about this?
more clues
last clue
Wow, that's an amazing collection. Your building is one "giant phone booth" :)
Great collection, and an even better building to house it in! I'm in love with some of those 'fixer-upper' pay stations you have in storage! :)
Wow,
This thread makes me understand a little more about how you now so much about payphones. This knowhow makes you understand better than "all" of us the development of the payphone systems used by different groups of telco's. At the same time, it looks like e.g. Europe did go their own ways with pretty different thinking, when the still followed North America on regular phones.
Here i Europe pulsating polarity reversals, superimposed signal in 12 or 16 kHz or even in in mains frequency (50 Hz) was used.
As far as I have understood non of these has been used in USA/Canada.
dsk
Quote from: Payphone installer on February 06, 2016, 07:22:57 PM
Can you spot what is special about this?
Figured I'd give someone else a chance at answering. Looks like that's not going to happen so I'll take a stab at it.
Those parts are from a Gray/Western 50A. The bottom although hidden by very nice chrome plating is cast iron, as is the backboard.
If you look closely you can see what is left of the 'barber pole rivets' that held the brass Gray/ Western Electric plaque and the coin return escutcheon. The Gray/Western Electric plaque was mounted over the coin vault door.
Examples of the brass plaques can be seen on some of the complete 50As in the other pictures or the attachment to this post
I would've never guessed. But I know nothing about payphones. I can't imagine what your collection is worth! Great setup!
That is an impressive collection of payphones, and parts!!
50A - Also, on that cast vault/backboard, it looks like there are not any reinforced screw mount "bosses" on the back of the backboard. Doesn't that mean that the backboard is a very early one? My understanding is that the reinforcements were added over time to improve security.
169G - What is that? The phone looks like a 181/191 externally. I thought the 16X were all 2-piece coin collectors, so is that a very early production handset version prior to the 1940 181?
Quote from: Payphone installer on February 04, 2016, 07:14:36 PM
All lighting is solar power, heat is propane and kerosene. I have spent a lot of time acquiring 148A backboards to mount the later telephones on. I also decided to mount strips of poplar attached to studs to support the weight and mange the amount of holes drilled.
Hi Jim, Top of the morning to you. The phone you guys got going for me is working like a champ. Your new building looks great. Your collection is awesome.
I noticed in your post above you stated that you were using kerosene for heat. A friendly word of advice if I may. Please don't use it. (1) They leave an oily/filmy residue on everything and is almost impossible to remove. (2) They are unpredictable when it comes to safety and fire.
I once had a tenant that used (2) for supplemental heat in a rental property. When they moved, I had to replace all the carpet, scrub the walls and ceilings, cabinets, etc. as best as possible and then paint with a product called Kilz before repainting everything. Just my humble opinion. Thanks, OT
Yep I was. Only using the kro until they up sized my propane tank. We are now on 100% propane. I had concerns with fire also.
Wow that is quite a collection of payphones that you have payphone installer. Am I correct that you have even more then you posted here? Would be neat to see the rest of your collection.
Yes here is more I have been moving more from other locations
added Strowgers
Wall of Gray
L brackets
More single slots,plastic butttons black gromett handsets hard to find.
Manual set 1E1
Rare Gray Paystation crate that old two-pice payphones shipped in.
Large sign
more signs to hang
That is certainly shaping up into a wonderful display!
Beautiful work, Jim!
Even seeing this small slice of your collection boggles my mind!!! :o
Best regards!
"WOW" is the only word I can come up with. I knew you had an incredible collection, but it is even more impressive displayed like that!
Just beautiful.
This is an awesome display!
Do you have a way to scan some of the instruction cards? We have a 1C1 at the Telephone Museum in Maine that is connected to a #3 crossbar in post-pay mode but it has the post-pay instruction cards. It would be cool to reproduce a pre-pay instruction card set to have it be "correct"...
-Rick
Hi, "new guy" here...
Just saw this thread for the 1st time today. After spending this week beaming because I just acquired my 1st pay phone I am floored at your considerable collection!
No wonder I don't find many old pay phones out in "the wild"....
You have them all!
Nice job of creating this huge phone booth display!
Benny
Been a while since I added anything here there has been progress but slow because of my business. here are the colored A/E's that just got added Thanks To Stan.
I finally also added all the really hard to find 160 series payphones with the steel hooks.
down below the 160 series I also added all the single slots 1A1 1C1 1E1 everything I could find.
More phone pics
more plus a really rare enclosure. if you look closely you can see where the l bracket was.
Very impressive!
I think I see a Field Trial 3A from around 1983.
JMO,
Jim S.
Yes there are several 3A's with the light gray upper housing and some with the black upper I have been wanting to investagate what I have further just have not had the time yet.
Jim - Your display is really looking great. I really like that the collection is all "as removed from service" - there is a huge amount of history there. Perhaps your building will someday become the "National Payphone Archive", a true resource. No rattlecan repaints or hopper ringers here......
"Please deposit ten cents for the next 3 minutes."
IN EACH ONE!
Stan S.
That sure is a heavy wall, hope its strong!
Ken
Moved the smaller collectors into the building just one problem where to put them!!LOL
See if you can spot the American Toll collectors. This picture very rare 23 with coin return and correct chute. C&P engraved in door.
Those are some really nifty phones.
Latest addition is to the porch.
I am running out of room inside hanging some stuff outside.
Amazing!
Very impressive.
That's a lot of payphones and signs! Any more booths added outside?
Jim....that is breath taking......what a fabulous home for your Payphones and signs......Tremendous!!....Doug
Love it, very impressive.
Incredible display! Jim, you may have already posted the information but what's the last name?
Unbelievable! I would have thought you needed a concrete and steel building for all of those phones! It's been decades since I have even seen a 3 slot payphone and over 40 years since I saw one used. If it was me I would set up a few channel banks and connect to an Asterisk server so some of them can get dial tone. I had also set up a controller to work with Western Electric single slot phones which would recognize the coin tones based on some code I got from the internet.
Hard to beat that collection of AE's in my mind. But, I might be a little biased!
Nice that AE made them available in every colour that AE made the other phones of that era available in.
Fantastic Display!
Terry
Trivia question which color is the rarest?
Jim - On the color rarity of the AE 3-slots, I'll guess the gray.... I'm thinking not much different than beige so maybe not a lot of demand. I really like the red one too.
I see a reference to Stan above that picture. In the Ron Knappen Payphone book, it references that Stan S. has the entire set of colors - are these from his collection?
But in most cases colours weren't chosen to fit in or match decor, most were just a default color for inside or outside so Beige was quite common. Thus gray could have been at least somewhat common. AE SAU's (Secretarial Answering Units) were Gray early on and then seemed to go to Beige.
So....colours like yellow, turquoise, pink, Light blue and possibly gray probably didn't show up very often. I'm going with Pink as the hardest to find. Well, unless your looking on eBay where Beige phones are quite often listed as being Pink!
Even once AE converted to building 120A and B Single Slot payphones they were available in black, chrome and Beige.
Terry
Unquestionably the hardest colored Automatic Electric 3-slot to find was Gray.
Ivory was next. Pink wasn't that difficult. There were plenty in beauty parlors.
There was a picture floating around on the Internet for years of my colored 3-slot payphone collection that was entitled
'Every Color Except Gray'.
Stan S.
Makes sense except for why Ivory would be so hard to find. Like AE 880 Speakerphones, they were primarily an office phone so not all colours were made. But why they made white, beige, black, green & turquoise but NO Ivorymade little sense to me. All those out there that look like ivory are really white. And I would have thought that red would have had some takers for boardrooms or exec offices but....didn't make one yet they made them in green and turquoise!
Terry
Jim, your collection is mind blowing.
I would love to one day see it in person.
It's an amazing display built by an equally amazing talent.
Many of the A/E are hard to get but Gray is the hardest. I have also found that W/E sets are hard to get in colors or chrome once you get below the 200 series. Like 190's or 180's.
Hah.. I had to fix an error due to auto complete.
It said your collection "isn't mind-blowing".
All better now.
I like this:
(https://i.imgur.com/h6LL8i3.jpg)
Did you build that or did a factory? It looks a lot like those old Western Electric wooden indoor phone booths, aside from the pyramid roof.
I would say factory as I have one the same style.
Mine is from the 1940's
Quote from: Duffy on September 06, 2018, 07:23:02 PM
I would say factory as I have one the same style.
Mine is from the 1940's
That's awesome. Do you know what company made it? Is the frame made of wood or metal, and what's the roof made out of?
Quote from: MaximRecoil on September 06, 2018, 07:36:32 PM
That's awesome. Do you know what company made it? Is the frame made of wood or metal, and what's the roof made out of?
This should answer your question.
We'll, you've been busy Jim, for many years.
I think you're going to need an addition.
And for fire, theft I'd go with a security and fire system.
I'd hate to see the same thing happen to you your set up, that happened to John la'rue. That would be tragic.
Nice, impressive collection and display.
Tornado worries me the most. I have large German Shepherds. 8)
Oh yea, your in that part of the country...
And those dogs make a good security system, cheaper too
Wow - really nice collection! Would be awesome to have an entire building dedicated to a collection like that.
I missed this thread until it was bumped again.
A lot of hard work and dedication there payphone installer. An admirable collection. :) Very impressive.
For additional security I'm a big fan of decent CCTV cameras and equipment (one of my other obsessions). Our place is smothered in them - even the bird boxes have got cameras! ;D