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Hi from FL

Started by Cole, August 06, 2019, 10:17:57 PM

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Cole

Just joined the forum. I've always been interested in telephones, I'm 30 so I don't have a lot of knowledge of the antiques. But I did grow up around lots of phones. I remember my grandparents gave me some old slimline phone to play with as a kid, and they had a brown rotary phone on the wall of their kitchen. Not sure what they did with it. I had a toy Princess phone as well that had a little record player inside for the sounds, sadly it broke and I took it apart as a kid. We also had, my parents still have an ivory rotary desk phone in their house that says Refurbco on the bottom. I also had a kid's book called "The Telephone Book" that showed all the different kinds of phones, which always was fascinating to me.

I'm mostly a collector of fans and electrical parts mainly, but the phones all the way through present day have always interested me. I remember seeing candlestick phones on TV growing up such as in Shining Time Station and the ones from British comedies like Onslow and Daisy's BT Stateman and Hyacinth's BT Minstrel and Duet phones on Keeping Up Appearances.

I like newer telephones as well since I grew up with a lot of cordless phones like GE and Unidens.

So I'm a bit younger than many probably and have interest in a wide range of ages of phones, but I have enjoyed reading the posts here already!

RotarDad

Welcome to the forum!  Newer stuff is great; thanks for sharing a bit about yourself and interests.  The newer cordless phones are certainly readily available as people give up their landlines, so lots of opportunity there.  I know several members here collect fans also....
Paul

Jack Ryan

Welcome to the forum Cole.

>> I remember my grandparents gave me some old slimline phone to play with as a kid

I suddenly feel very old...

People tend to collect what they grew up with so it is natural for younger collectors to collect younger phones. Good luck with your collection!

Jack

HarrySmith

Hi Cole, Welcome to the forum. You have found the best place on the net for old phones. Lots of knowledge & experience here with people who love to help. We also love pictures, post some of your stuff when you can. Where about in Florida? I am in Coral Springs. There is a telephone show every January in Maitland, just outside of Orlando.
Harry Smith
ATCA 4434
TCI

"There is no try,
there is only
do or do not"

RB

Welcome to the sandbox, Cole!
scratch around a bit, tons of stuff to see and read here!

Key2871

Welcome Cole, there is a LOT of stuff to learn about here, and it's all fun. Glad you came.
KEN

tallrick

In Miami Florida here, sometimes it feels like a whole other world, and country. Not many old phones left in yard sales here but I do see the newer stuff quite often.

Telephones_etc

Welcome to the CRP forum! Always happy to see new faces around here! :D Used to live in Florida myself, Tampa Bay area. Moved up to NC a few years back for the mountains and cool weather 8)
"The day will come when the man at the telephone will be able to see the distant person to whom he is speaking."

-Alexander Graham Bell

.....

Welcome to CRPF Cole.

Dan/Panther

Cole;
Welcome to the forum. If you need information about vintage phones, you won't find a better source.

D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

Stormcrash

Welcome! Your a couple years older than I am so don't worry about being too young. And I also have an interest in a pretty wide range of phones, my collection started with more recent touch tone phones from AT&T post breakup as that's the logo and phones that were around growing up in the 90's :)

Cole

Thanks all for the welcome. I'm in central FL. I have family in NC.

Most of the phone collection I have is newer Uniden, VTech or GE cordless phones. I especially like ones with unique features, such as I have Unidens with Bluetooth pairing for cell phones and I have a GE with a built in clock radio. I've been getting interested in the older Western Electric phone such as the older rotary and round button Trimlines, as well as the Princess phones. I remember the AT&T Trimline phones as a lot were around when I was younger, and somehow the old round button Trimlines I have a memory of also. It's a shame the 210 model is being discontinued.

The older phones seem rare to see around here as well, most everything in thrifts is cordless or newer corded stuff.

My aunt used to work for Southern Bell, first as a switchboard operator, then selling spaces in the Yellow Pages and finally as a cell phone salesperson before she retired.

Key2871

Yard sales, flea markets, places like that, even antique stores might have nice old phones and at good prices too.
KEN

Stormcrash

Yeah, Trimlines were ubiquitous in the 90's. I agree it's a shame the 210 appears to now be discontinued, but it also appears the other caller ID "Trimline" has also been discontinued.  That model, along with some other, corded models have now disappeared from the telephones.att.com website. One I specifically noticed is the CL2909 is gone, but Vtech is now selling a phone at Walmart that looks suspiciously similar to it. I wonder if Vtech is planning on ending the licensing of the AT&T name and are transitioning to producing the lower end stuff on their own brand before the current license ends in 2020

You should post a picture of the GE clock phone. I actually got an old GE clock radio NOS on eBay to use as my alarm clock after getting fed up with the dim display on my previous clock and finding that most alarm clocks sold today are poorly designed junk

loblolly986

Thrift stores aren't a very good place to look for antiques/collectibles... especially if it is a Goodwill store. Items that can be had on eBay by the dozen are difficult to find at a thrift store. But when things do show up at one a good deal can often be had, although sometimes if something is obviously an antique or the owners do their research there may be a price comparable to what you'd expect from an antique store.

What kinds of electrical items do you collect? I have a number of antique lamp sockets going as far back as the late 1880s, some very rare. Ever since the great antiquesockets.com forum ceased to exist seven years ago, there hasn't been a good venue for discussion of early sockets, switches, or heck, even antique light fixtures as far as I've managed to find.