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[McHeath]

Gee back to an old topic, but hey I have new info.  So I went out prowling this past weekend in the antique stores, and since Sept the old phone situation here has changed.  There were a lot of rotary phones in all the stores I went to, one store had at least 7, and each store had several.  This is in stores that for the past few years have never had a rotary, or would get a single one of those 70's era faux French jobs.  This time I saw a lot of 500s, 554s, Princesses, AE 80s, and even some Starlites.  Also a PTT job, that really art deco looking one.  (sorry about the use of the dreaded "art deco" but I don't know the name of the model)  Also some phones with cranks where the rotary dials should go, and a fair number of candlesticks and wooden wall phones. 

So clearly in the last few months a major shift in collecting old phones has happened in my neck of the woods. 

Prices were reasonable, in fact even amazingly low.  A really nice 62' Princess in Aqua with no fading for $30.  A very clean green 500 from 55' for $18.  A yellow 56' 500 for $20. 

So something has changed here, is this happening everywhere?  I mean, these are stores that cater to mostly middle and upper middle class Boomers and Silent Generation folks, mostly a lot of "Victorian" stuff, or 50's toys, or WW2 era stuff, or 20s-30s household stuff or toys.  Not really ever been a phone glut like this, you'd see the odd wooden wall job, and occasional candlestick, but that was usually it.   

[Dan/Panther]

It's a natural progression, we take old candlestick, or even oak wall phones and upgrade them to modern, or more modern subsets to get them to work today, so why not adapt our 500's to work with the new technology.
After all, it's a just bascially a microphone, a speaker, and a system to signal where we want to go, in a box. What they continue to do is change the shape of the box. Wire or no wire, it's still the same basic concept. We will always be able to use our phones.
The only thing I see us needing to do, is to incorpoate house current into the system to get the ringers to work. MAYBE changing to lower impedance receiver/Transmitters, but we will be able to keep the box.

I took my 100 year old W.E. 317-E oak wall phone, removed the batteries, and installed the frame from a mid 70's push button phone into the lower section. I connected the transmitter wires, and receiver wires where the hand set used to go, wired the cradle switch into the hook switch, ringers into the ringer, and now it's a fiunctioning oak wall phone, and unless you know about the push button phone inside you can't tell.
The only problem is the volume suffers. that is where the lower impedance modern  transmitter/receivers may have to come in.

D/P