What Made You Start Collecting Telephones?

[mlast77]

My grandfather was a lineman and telephone repair man for Mountain Bell, and I recall seeing boxes of old phones when I was a kid (that I now know were 302's he had pulled out of rural Idaho homes when replacing them 500's, I assume). I had toyed around with connecting Analog phones to VoIP and cellular systems, so I kind of kept an eye open for the 500s I grew up with to use as sort of an intercom around the house.

Then, at a flea market, I found an AE40 Monophone with a button built into the handset. I was super intrigued, and for the first time, opened a phone and explored the design. A while later, I saw Kellogg Masterphone 1000 ... I didn't get it, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I love all the info everyone shares on here, and I'm having fun and learning a lot! Thanks!

[MMikeJBenN27]

What made me start is seeing on E-Bay the phones of my youth - 300 series phones and soft-plastic 500s, the Space Savers, and even the A1 - B1 - D1 cradle phones.  I used to see all of those as a kid, but later on hardly ever saw any, eventually there was nothing but modular, then just Touch Tone, so I started grabbing them.  The rest is history.  I recently got a blue 304 and an orange 554 with BLACK, rather than white, letters and numbers on the dial face.

Mike