Ok, now for some levity.
How many auctions have we seen of a candlestick or a wood wall phone with the receiver in the hook upside down? You know the one. It looks like the first picture seen here.....
To me, it is the equivalent of the second picture.
Are people trying to get attention and draw people to their auctions, or do they just not know any better? Something I have often wondered.
PS: no animals or phones were actually abused by taking these pictures, although the candlestick had to spend a couple hours in counseling after the demeaning and ghastly photo. :D
If you squint at the second picture it sorta looks like Mickey Mouse.
Sometimes it works... ;) ;)
I have seen listings with pictures with the whole phone upside-down. Even stranger are the pictures of phones in odd locations, such as on bathroom counters or on top of washing machines ;)
Larry
I've seen my share of phone on washer pictures too. One or two of my best phones came from sellers who took the picture on a washer. I figure it's the only uncluttered horizontal surface they could find, or the light was good in their utility room or something.
One of my favorite auction pictures is the modular 500 or 2500 with the handset cord plugged into the mounting cord jack on the back of the phone. Sometimes they even claim the phone works, but I can't see how they ever plugged it in.
Bill:
So many phones in your collection that they are taking over your laundry room? ;D ;D ;D ;D
I guess in all my zeal to talk about the upside-down receiver, I neglected to think about the washing machine!
So, I am busted.
Washing machines do make excellent staging areas for all kinds of pictures, and I don't think I am alone. To be sure, my desk and other areas of the house are very cluttered, and poorly lit. Take, for example, the 5302 shots in another thread about the G1 handset on the 5302. Lousy pictures, and I didn't even take the time to clear away the backdrop for that picture.
So, as Jonathan indicated, the washing machine was both well lit and the only uncluttered surface in the whole house.
Quote from: Phonesrfun on June 02, 2010, 11:52:30 AM
So, as Jonathan indicated, the washing machine was both well lit and the only uncluttered surface in the whole house.
Bill, I speak from experience. :) At the moment my iron is sitting on my washing machine. That was the least uncluttered place to iron a wrinkled shirt yesterday morning. As for pictures, I prefer either the front steps or the tailgate of my station wagon. I guess that's because my utility room has no windows.
Quote from: JorgeAmely on June 02, 2010, 11:45:05 AM
Bill:
So many phones in your collection that they are taking over your laundry room? ;D ;D ;D ;D
They have taken over every other square inch, so yes, it's now the laundry room.
Bill;
I at least lets you know they know squat about the phone.
To take photos I have several different colored pieces of cloth rolled up on different pieces of PVC pipe. That way when I go to photograph something just drape it over the washer and then shoot.
One more thing, I have a washer like yours and it has a secondary rinse and a few other adjustments, however it does not properly spin dry the cloths do you have any trouble with that ?
D/P
Dan:
I don't have any problem with the washer. It comes with the rental house I am renting, and I have been here for two years with no problems what so ever (at least with the washer) :o
It has been years since I last did anything with a washing machine, but you might just take a peek with a flashlight and see what you can see. Maybe a belt or something easy.
Quote from: Phonesrfun on June 02, 2010, 02:14:46 PM
It has been years since I last did anything with a washing machine,
Bill: DO you just throw your clothes out now? ??? ;D
Terry
Terry:
I just keep getting myself in deeper, don't I?
What I meant was.....errrr..... well.....Oh never mind. ;D
Terry:
Good catch (and not Bill's clothes)! ;D ;D ;D ;D
a photo like that really drives an OCD person like me nuts. :) (no comment from you either, d/p)
jonathan, i actually had a case of trouble where the subscriber had the set plugged in to the jack with a handset cord. when i told him (yes, it was a guy) what the trouble was, his reply was that it was a brand new cord. ::) & brand new usually means something they dug out of a box somewhere. ;)
Back in college daze when I lived in the dorm I would invert the handset on my 500 just to be all wild and crazy and stick it to The Man.
Other students would make mundane comments like, "Why is the handset upside down?" instead of praising me for raging against the system, striking a blow for individuality, and throwing off the shackles of conformity by my radical refusal to place my handset in the cradle the way it was designed.
Oh those wild days of youth. ::)
Quote from: bwanna on June 02, 2010, 08:38:15 PM
a photo like that really drives an OCD person like me nuts. :) (no comment from you either, d/p)
Short Trip ? :D
D/P
d/p... :P
wow mcheath, you really were a h---raiser, eh ::)
McHeath;
I always wanted to be part of your kinda crowd, but I was always afraid of getting in trouble, I can see now, I missed out on a lot of the real fun.
D/P
Many years ago, when 554s were common fixtures in dorm rooms, a favorite prank on the liberal arts types was to sneak into their rooms, set the ringer to max, open up the housing and detach the plastic hookswitch tab from the cradle, so the phone was always on-hook, even with the handset lifted. An after midnight call then caused all sorts of reactions when the phone kept ringing and ringing.
The trick was to get it back in order before the repairman got there.
(At least, they tell me that's the way it was done. ;) ::) )
Quote from: Dan/Panther on June 02, 2010, 02:07:51 PM
One more thing, I have a washer like yours and it has a secondary rinse and a few other adjustments, however it does not properly spin dry the cloths do you have any trouble with that ?
D/P
D/P, I recently ran into that issue with my girlfriend's washer which sounds like the one you have. Repair guy came out and replaced the lid switch on it, and it solved the problem - but I'm not sure why?
BOP;
You know you are onto something, because when the lid is closed, the washer doesn't spin dry very well, but when I prop the lid open and make the switch myself, it dries. Maybe the switch is not adjusted and it barely makes and then interrupts during spinning.
Thanks maybe I can adjust it myself. Or at least buy the switch and change it, and save a couple hundred bucks.
D/P
Get the washer model # and call you local appliance repair parts store. The part is probably $10-20 and you should be able to reason out how to replace it. Most appliance repair houses can print you an exploded view of your appliance. Anyway, you are retired so you can make it into a 3 day task if needed.
JMO,
Jim
Thank you for that Paul! Way to stick it to them liberal arts types!!!
Quote from: paul-f on June 03, 2010, 03:28:24 PM
Many years ago, when 554s were common fixtures in dorm rooms, a favorite prank on the liberal arts types was to sneak into their rooms, set the ringer to max, open up the housing and detach the plastic hookswitch tab from the cradle, so the phone was always on-hook, even with the handset lifted. An after midnight call then caused all sorts of reactions when the phone kept ringing and ringing.
The trick was to get it back in order before the repairman got there.
(At least, they tell me that's the way it was done. ;) ::) )
I'm sort of guilty of a similar practice with a 500. Well, make that a 2500 or whatever the multi-line version of that one is.
In my youth, I worked at a large hotel and for a while I manned the on-site reservations office. We had headsets to use if we wanted. That required leaving the phone off-hook and turning a switch on the base to activate the headset.
We'd all lift the handset and rest it just in front of the cradle. It's almost like Dreyfuss designed the phone to have the handset rest there, like if you had to step away and put the handset down, the 500's offered the user a convenient on-board way to do it.
I wonder if there's any documentation about this, or if it just worked out that way for the handset to safely rest in that off-hook position.
Ralph,
I am sure that the phone was designed with that intention. The 2554 was designed so that the handset could be hung on the side of the cradle.
Larry
I've been naughty too.
When I worked for my local council, we had push button 8746's two of them on facing desks, this was for the enquiry line, and the switchboard would run every general enquiry through to these two phones, the job was incredibly stressful, as soon as you put the handset down it would ring instantly, had to do 2 weeks on 9 to 5, two weeks doing something else.
Anyhow, I had a couple of "rescued" ones at haome and fiddled about, figured out if you can remove the tiny spring to the hook to stop it jumping up you could leave the phone on hook.
I had a holiday coming up, and stayed late with a screwdriver in my pocket, guess what I did to them?
Another time we had a very drunken Christmas part and two of us crawled round under the desks to find the sockets and switched every single phone to the wrong extension.
In the process we managed to plug phones into computer sockets and crash the whole IT for my department...
Waiting for the cops at the door now...
I think the slickest design I've ever encountered for convenience of use is the kellogg 900.
At first I wondered, WHY did they build those deep concave spots under the ends of the receiver. Then I found out why.
Really slick and convenient.
D/P
And here all along, I thought the purpose of those indentations was to double as an ash tray.
Just found this on Craigs List, fits this thread perfectly!
http://miami.craigslist.org/mdc/atq/1785540772.html ( dead link 03-09-21 )
:D
Harry;
If that booth was on ebay, or in my area, they would be asking 4 times that amount.
D/P
Yeah, I would imagine so. There is another incomplete wtihout correct phone for $900.00 that just went up today. If I had room I would pick that up for $500.00 in a heartbeat!
That is a very nice Booth and the price is reasonable. Harry, you should make some room for it and contact the folks in 2 weeks and offer them $350.00.
JMO,
Jim
I thought about making an offer, this is the second time I have seen it listed. The only wat to make room would be to get rid of the dog & my wife! Or, if I brought it home she would get rid of me!