4-prong jacks

[GINA_GOHS@YAHOO.COM]

Hi, I'm in Canada, and my dad built our house in 1973. I am wondering why we have these 4-prong jacks. Everyone else had the the little square ones like you see today on ethernet cables...is it called an IEE? Anyway, I've never seen 4-prong in anyone's homeland people always ask what these are. Are these worth anything to anyone? Some are still installed in the hose, we no longer have a landline.

"The four-prong jack and plug combination was the standard line connection for all portable telephone sets until the conversion to modular jacks in the 1970s, typified by the Registered Jack standards promulgated in U.S. federal law"

[poplar1]

4-prong Jacks and Plugs were an option: In most houses, both wall phones and desk phones were permanently connected.

The 4-prong plug and jacks were developed in the early 1930s, when the improved speech circuit required 4 wires between a desk stand phone ("candlestick") or hand telephone set (202 model)and the bell box on the wall.

[Kellogg Kitt]

the little square ones

Those are called "modular" jacks/plugs.  If your house had been built just a few years later, you probably would have had modular instead of 4-prong.

Some collectors and hobbyists might be interested in having them, but I don't know how much money they would be worth, just because so many millions of them were made.  You might try listing them on eBay.  Probably somebody will buy them; the only question is, for how much.

[MMikeJBenN27]

These were available at extra cost if you wanted your phones to be portable - normally they were permanently hooked up and required a screwdriver to remove/install.  If you have "classic" hard-wired phones that you want to be able to instantly unplug, you specified these.  They are still good today, as today's modular cords are super-thin and are always getting caught under furniture legs when trying to walk with the phone, something that greatly annoys me.

Mike