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Started by McHeath, September 04, 2008, 09:45:02 PM

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McHeath

Finding old phones is more difficult than one would have expected here in my corner of the world.  I'm guessing that most of them simply get thrown away, so the landfill would be good pickings, but yucky.  Nearby is a uber cheap thrift store that has 50% off Sundays, and they have a decent size old phone section.  Mostly cheap junk made in the last 15 years in China, but last weekend I scored a 1980 trimline in great shape for $2.50 and a 1978 made Design Line character phone, the Snoopy and Woodstock model, and it was rotary to boot!  Price for this little gem was $7.50, plus tax.  It's in great condition, works of course, and after a good cleaning looks almost new.  Took it to work, I'm a teacher, and sat it up and the kids were all over it, trying to figure out how to dial it.  They kept sticking their fingers in the holes on the fingerwheel, expecting buttons to push, no one knew how to dial it.  Which of course they now think is the coolest thing ever, but I'm not sure any of them are going to turn in their slide cell phones however and give up texting for pulse dialing. 

Mark Stevens

It seems that around here (north-central Texas) old phones come pretty cheap, at least model 500s. Often as not, the 302's that I see at flea markets and antique shops are priced as if they were gold, but 500's can be had for a song most of the time. Come to think of it, the magic number seems to be $10. I bought two 500's at a flea market a few months ago for $20 (one of them from '58), and I picked up a hard-wired (I forget the year) 554 for $9 at an antique shop. Actually, the shop was in a barn, and the size of a big mall. It was filthy, and made me think of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The old couple didn't say much, and were listening to an ancient cassette tape of a holy-roller preacher. Positively bizarre.
Funny about kids and rotary phones. When I taught my 7 year old how to dial he was positively amazed... for a few days.  ;D

McHeath

Those are great prices, out here in Kawleefornya at an antique store 500s go for more than 10 bucks, if you can find one as they are rather rare.  I recently bought a 1954 made 500 for $25, and it was in horrible shape, had some kind of weird coating on it like shellac with hair in it, a cracked mouthpiece, corroding earpiece, and other assorted ills.  But for here it was a good buy. 

The old man across the street gave my son a 554 this summer, he had it buried under junk in the garage.  Made in 59', rebuilt so many times as to be a Frankenstein phone.  The parts came from multiple color phones and were painted by Bell into ivory.  So the mouthpiece was green, earpiece black, housing red, and only the ringer and frame are original.  Dates range from the early 60's to the late 70's on all the components.  Final sale date sticker of 84' on the back.  It too looked like a refugee from the Texas Chainsaw films, and of course it works just fine. 


Mark Stevens

I think it's funny how much importance is placed these days on matching dates. Not only were phones routinely repaired or upgraded over their lifetime (as you described), but Western Electric routinely put out new phones with mismatched parts. The model 5302, now that was a real Frankenstein! So many people seem to be restoring and selling old phones in mass quantities these days...I wonder if any of them disassemble all their phones, sort the parts by date, then piece together "matching" phones?! Ooh, I probably should have kept that to myself!  :-X

Dennis Markham

I am always searching for telephones.  Here in Michigan yard sales, garage sales and flea markets are very popular during the summer months.  The problem is that there aren't too many summer months!  Things are winding down now as they always do after Labor Day.  In addition to the aforementioned sales there are many antique stores.  Also, in my area there is a huge antique fair that is held in May, July and September.  I went to it this morning.  This was my second year of going to that antique fair each of the three months.  It is outdoors with many tents/vendors selling some very nice antiques.  However the antique shops and fairs demand higher prices for the same phones that one can find at a yard sale or flea market.  Today I saw a black model 500 from 1957.  My initial inspection of a phone like that is to pick up the handset and look at the ear cap.  If it is a "6 holer" then I look at the leather feet.  If it has been modified or the caps were replaced with plastic ones I move on.  This phone had a nice heavy, coiled handset cord which I believe was original.  The center dial card was an original from this area, having a PRescott exchange.  The price tag was $40.  Now keeping in mind that I have many of these phones I'm only going to buy one if it is a good deal.  A few weeks ago at a yard sale I stopped, like I do when possible.  I walk up and say something like "I know it's a long shot but do you have any rotary dial phones?"  They usually laugh.  But at this yard sale a fellow had three.  One was a black 500, very similar to the one I spoke of here.  In fact it had the same PRescott dial card.  It is from a City about 25 miles away.  It too was dated similarly, 1957 or 1958.  An all original telephone.  He wanted $5.  Guess which one I took home?  I made the lady this morning an offer of $20 and she bit my head off!  Generally there is room for bargaining but to offer half of what she was asking, which was still too much was over the top for her.  I have seen at this same antique fair, the same vendors dragging the same phones now for two years.  Some will hold on to their asking price and will not budge.  Some want to move the merchandise and will compromise. 

For the person that wants just one telephone, to look "vintage" at their home then $40 is not a bad price for a nice Western Electric phone that is fifty-one years old.  So the antique shop/fair is a good route to take when searching.  But phone guys want them cheap.  The bargain, or the hunt is half of the experience.  I think most collectors want to be able to show his phone collector friend(s) what he/she found and that it was a bargain.

I did bring home a non-dial (manual) Automatic Electric 80.  It is older and very heavy.  The parts are not dated like Western Electric phones.  I believe it to be from the lat 50's or early 1960's.  It needs a little work to make it nice. I paid $10 for it because I don't have one.  That was worth the visit to the antique fair this morning.

There is a huge flea market about 30 minutes away that is open on Sunday and Tuesday during the summer.  It is also outdoors.  I've been doing pretty where there this summer.  I will be there first thing in the AM.  I'll report back on any good treasures.

Sorry to be so long winded with this posting.

I have a couple of what I call great finds to share, but I'll wait for another time. 

Happy Hunting!

Mark Stevens

Quote from: Dennis Markham on September 06, 2008, 02:46:19 PM
But phone guys want them cheap.  The bargain, or the hunt is half of the experience.  I think most collectors want to be able to show his phone collector friend(s) what he/she found and that it was a bargain.
Yes, the thrill of the hunt!  Nothing more satisfying than buying a phone that you know you can "spruce up" to be worth many times more than what you paid. It's been a while since I've bagged my limit...I need to find new hunting grounds!

Quote from: Dennis Markham on September 06, 2008, 02:46:19 PM
I did bring home a non-dial (manual) Automatic Electric 80.  It is older and very heavy.  The parts are not dated like Western Electric phones.  I believe it to be from the lat 50's or early 1960's.  It needs a little work to make it nice. I paid $10 for it because I don't have one.  That was worth the visit to the antique fair this morning.
Post some photos of your AE80!  Then, when you've given it the treatment, you can dazzle us with the "after" photos.  ;)

McHeath

I've never been to any sort of flea market in this area that had any old rotary phones, at least none that I noticed.  There really seems to be a dearth of interest here, even family and friends who come by our place rarely comment on the rotary phones we have in use.  One time a group was over and the phone rang, the old bell ringer sound, and the group was shocked to hear it.  Comments were along the lines of, "What kind of phone do you still have?"  A good number of our younger family and friends no longer even have land lines, and more and more often I overhear conversations at work or about town of people who got rid of their land lines because, "I never used it anymore."  None of our three grown boys have land lines, two have iPhones and the other a Motorola jobber, and that seems to be the trend of the future.  One wonders if there will even be any sort of land line in 50 more years, or will wireless triumph entirely? 

I did pick up a thrift store 2554 the other day for 3 bucks.  Nothing special, probably made about 1990 for Radio Shack in China.  I needed a few cheap parts for various projects and it fit the bill as it still has a bell ringer and I don't mind hacking it all up.  Interestingly it has a steel chassis, and even the tie down spots for the network, but no longer has a separate network just a circuit board beneath the dial.  Also it still has the connection points for the original style hookswitch but no longer has a hookswitch per se, just a single button. 

As Mark was saying about the desire for matching dates on old phones, and how that makes them the machines to have, I see the same wish in my other areas of collecting.  That is a very good point about the potential for fraud, someone just assembling a phone and passing it off as all original.  As I don't really own any phones all that valuable it has not been an issue for me, yet, but if I were to drop some real money on a "rare" phone I'd want to be sure it was not a parts conglomeration.  But then how to tell?  I guess maybe no one would be able to tell, it could be a real problem.

Mark Stevens

Quote from: McHeath on September 07, 2008, 11:14:08 PM
A good number of our younger family and friends no longer even have land lines, and more and more often I overhear conversations at work or about town of people who got rid of their land lines because, "I never used it anymore."  None of our three grown boys have land lines, two have iPhones and the other a Motorola jobber, and that seems to be the trend of the future.  One wonders if there will even be any sort of land line in 50 more years, or will wireless triumph entirely? 
Yes, I'm afraid that could spell the real end of telephones as we think of them. I have cell phones, too, but the audio quality on them never compares to that of a good phone on a land line. It still amazes me how important it is to people today that they can talk on the phone all day...wherever they are. I'm a sociable guy, and have a number of friends, but I don't want to talk to them all day!

Quote from: McHeath on September 07, 2008, 11:14:08 PM
As Mark was saying about the desire for matching dates on old phones, and how that makes them the machines to have, I see the same wish in my other areas of collecting.  That is a very good point about the potential for fraud, someone just assembling a phone and passing it off as all original.  As I don't really own any phones all that valuable it has not been an issue for me, yet, but if I were to drop some real money on a "rare" phone I'd want to be sure it was not a parts conglomeration.  But then how to tell?  I guess maybe no one would be able to tell, it could be a real problem.
I'm afraid that there's no way to tell, providing that the correct vintage parts are used. Given that Western Electric themselves released brand-new telephones with non-matching dates, I think the important thing is for the collecting community to realize that too much emphasis shouldn't be placed on the dates.  Unless you yourself found the phone in an environment (grandma's house, for example) where you know it wasn't tampered with, there's just no way of telling.  :-\

McHeath


QuoteYes, I'm afraid that could spell the real end of telephones as we think of them. I have cell phones, too, but the audio quality on them never compares to that of a good phone on a land line.

We had put away the corded phones for some years, probably since the late 90s, before I hooked up the 357 this summer and had simply gotten used to the crappy sound quality of cell phones and cordless phones.  Once I hooked up the 357 my wife, to my surprise, started using it all the time.  When I inquired why she was using it instead of her cell and the land line cordless she said that it has by far the best sound quality of any phone in the house.  Ergonomics are also better, in my opinion, on with the G series handset than our cells/cordless.  But gee you forget all this after decades of no longer using such phones, we just got used to tinny sound and hard to hold handsets and that was that.  It was a huge rediscovery once we started using old phones this year, just huge. 

Mark Stevens

Isn't it funny that earlier handsets, like the E1 and F1, couldn't be cradled between the head and shoulder in hands-free fashion, which led to the more user-friendly G1.  Since that pinnacle of evolution, phones have "devolved" to the point that they, again, can't be held between the head and shoulder!  Of course there's those spiffy phones that you actually shove in your ear...

bingster

Quote from: Mark Stevens on September 08, 2008, 08:19:32 PMOf course there's those spiffy phones that you actually shove in your ear...
That gives me a great idea.  Wouldn't it be cool to get an operator's headset to work as a "hands free" device for your cell phone?
= DARRIN =



Mark Stevens

Quote from: bingster on September 09, 2008, 12:07:22 AM
That gives me a great idea.  Wouldn't it be cool to get an operator's headset to work as a "hands free" device for your cell phone?

I don't follow modern phone culture, but don't they have something like that?  I think it was cutting-edge for about 10 minutes before the "ear-bud" phones. Or were you talking about actually using a vintage headset? Now that would rock!

bingster

Oh, definitely a vintage one.  I imagine the sound quality out of one is comparable to an F1 handset, which would be a vast improvement over the teeny hands-free devices today.
= DARRIN =




Mark Stevens

#14
VERY cool!  ;D  I just about flipped when I first heard about the cellular rotary (your last link), but at that time the only way you could charge it was to unscrew/remove the housing, which was of course, absurd. Now it appears that they've wised up and placed a power hookup where the line cord once exited.
I don't know much about cellular technology or hardware, but I'll bet that if we knew what parts to get any one of us could make one of those phones for $40 or so...including the cost of the donor!