Most people still prefer to collect the original rotary dial telephone and not their push button cousins that came out as next generation telephones. Western Electric was the original manufacturer of these vintage rotary phones. Shopping for a vintage phone is easy using the internet for information.

The first thing you should do is identify which decade you would like your rotary dial telephone to be from. Learn as much as you can about phones from that decade to be certain that you are getting an original rotary phone and not a retro rotary phone. Some phones are reproduced and sold on Amazon and other internet sites. They look like the classic rotary phone but are new items and not sought after by most phone collectors.

Remember that when you purchase an original old phone you might need to restore it or have the phone ringer or phone cord replaced tow work with today’s modern phone systems.

You can check the underside of the telephone base and inside the ear piece and mouth piece of the bold old phone handset for dates that should indicate what year the vintage telephone was produced.

Online sites such as eBay and Craigslist are good sources for old phones, but use care to determine which rotary phone is best for your needs.

One of the most knowledgeable vintage rotary phone restoration experts in the country is Dennis Markham at Vintage Rotary Phones.

I’ve seen some classic rotary phones sell for thousands of dollars on auction sites such as eBay and Cragislist. I’ve also seen very similar phones selling for less than one dollar plus the cost of shipping.

It’s quite possible that the buyer who purchased each of these extremes thought that he was getting a good bargain on a vintage rotary phone. In fact, each of them might have thought that the price they paid for the rotary phone for sale was really low, thus making the purchase a cheap rotary phones!

The value of any old phone is set by many factors. Not the least of which is how rare the bold old phone is. But sometimes all reason goes out the window and I watch an eBay auction skyrocket for no reason. Sometimes people get caught up in the rotary phone auction frenzy and just bid up the price of the old telephone to heights never believed.

But every once in a while one of those bidders just has more information than the rest. He may recognized that the phone for sale is really a true classic that is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. At least to him!

The next time you hear the phrase cheap rotary phones remember that beauty – and cheapness – is in the eye of the beholder!

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Candlestick phones are still quite affordable and can be purchased for reasonable prices, particularly if you shop flea markets & garage sales.  The candlestick phone prices have not increased as fast as some other phones like the earlier wooden crank style phones.

Candlestick phones are small and are thus easy to display as a collectible item.  Their small size means that an avid collector can showcase several of his classic rotary dial phones in one place without taking up too much space.

Candlestick Phones are Rare

Although popular in their era, there were relatively few candlestick phones made.  The popularity of this classic telephone was solid for over forty years, but many particular models were only sold for one or two years.  It seems that no individual model ever was made in very high numbers, and today’s collector likes to acquire a rotary phone that is unique or individual.

Because these candlestick phones were never made in great numbers they remain somewhat rare today. Needless to say, over time, many of these phones were taken out of service and destroyed, thus adding to their rare standing.

At the beginning of the 20th century competition for the phone market was keen.  Several different phone manufacturers were making many different variations of the candlestick phone.  As a result, there is a diverse supply of individual model candlestick phones and this adds to them being highly sought by phone collectors.

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Historically speaking, the first introduced in 1937, the Western Electric 302 originally had a full metal housing made of zinc using a die cast process. During World War II, when zinc was in demand for use in building war products, a thermo plastic housing was introduced for the Western Electric 302 rotary dial phone.

Originally manufactured with a Bakelite handset, this was also changed to thermo plastic at some point in the phone’s history. Additionally, the Western Electric 302 was the first of the classic rotary desk phones that were built to contain the ringer apparatus in the base of the telephone.

Most frequently found in black, the Western Electric 302 also was produced in an assortment of colors. In fact, there were ten colors listed in catalogs from the time period: black, brass, ivory, silver, bronze, gold, blue, rose, red and green. An additional feature of the colored phones was that the handset cloth cord came in a matching color. The advent of the thermo-plastic housing saw yet another change in the phone manufacturing process: the color was no part of the plastic process and no longer painted on the exterior which was the method of application for the original die cast rotary phones.

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The Western Electric phones sell the best on eBay. Both the vintage desk phone and vintage wall phone sell well. You can find the dial phones in all kinds of colors: red, blue, pink, white, avocado, beige. The color selection for the old phones is almost endless.

Besides eBay you can find old phones for sale on Craigslist, at flea markets and garage sales, estate sales, thrift stores. There are a great many sources to buy old phones at.

Some smart eBay sellers go to Cragilist and put ads on offering to buy vintage phones. They buy the phones from Cragslist and then turn around and sell the classic rotary phones on eBay. Good thinking, eh?

The ease of use of both eBay, Craigslist and other sites allows both phone sellers and phone buyers to post photos of their old phones and to see the vintage product before they make a purchase. Both buyer and seller are aware of the condition of the old phone before the transaction is completed. This makes for a quality transaction on eBay.

Vintage items are one of the best selling categories on auction sites today. You can find all sorts of old antique vintage items for sale on these auction sites. Remember: one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.

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History of the Rotary Phone Dialtone

The dial tone is actually a combination of two different tones, or frequencies. These two tones actually beat together – technically called modulate – and do so very quickly. They are in the range of 350 Hz to 450Hz. The reason they sound so familiar is because other countries often use a single tone which has a completely different sound to it.

Prior to the advent of automatic dialing, telephone operators used to complete the calls that were placed from our old rotary dial desk phone or rotary dial wall phone. Customers who’d been used to hearing the voice of the operator when they picked up the phone were confused by the silence of the new automated switching systems, so the telephone companies added the dial tone so that the caller new they were connected and could make a telephone call. The telephone company referred to this dial tone as “comfort noise”. It became known as the dial tone and that’s what we still call it today.

Rotary Dial Phone Dial Tone

In case you forgot what the old phone dial tone sounds like, follow this link to Listen to the Dial Tone!

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My oh my how the times have changed. Some of us have been married to our old phone numbers for decades. If you let your old phone number lapse, or canceled your service, do you miss that old phone number? Didn’t you consider that number to belong to you? Who’s going to get the number now? Time marches on.

The Good Old Days of Vintage Rotary Phones

Many of us can remember the day when you had to call the operator in order to complete your call. This was before the time when automatic switching services handled your rotary phone call and directed it to the proper number.

Now your cell phone has caller ID, a phone address book for keeping your contacts, and other features you never dreamed of back in the day when your vintage rotary phone was your contact line with the world.

It’s kind of weird: Is there even an operator to call anymore? Not really. The days of your bold old phone making contact with the outside world are gone. So is your old rotary phone number!

If you dial your old phone number do you now get the warning: Beep Beep Beep – The number you dialed is no longer in service?

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Western Union purchased the shares of Elisha Gray in 1875. During this time Western Union continued in court litigation with the Bell Telephone Company over patent rights for the telephone. In 1879 Western Union dropped their litigation and the rights to the telephone fell to Bell Telephone. Ultimately, in 1881, Bell Telephone purchased Western Electric. Rotary phones were soon to be a part of most households in America.

Rotary Phones Leased to AT&T Customers

Western Union was taken under the wing of AT&T in 1915 and became a fully owned subsidiary of AT&T. As you might imagine, this relationship worked well as Western Electric designed and manufactured all of the assorted telephone equipment for AT&T. This included the manufacturing of the actual rotary telephones used by the millions of AT&T customers. AT&T retained ownership of these vintage rotary dial phones and leased them to their customers, thus establishing a line of residual income.

Western Electric released the Model 102 in 1928. This old phone was the first single handset version and replaced the older candlestick shape phones. Two years later Model 202 was designed, manufactured and released to the phone public.

Western Electric Integrates Phone Ringer into Phone Body

In 1937 designer Henry Dreyfuss designed the Model 302 rotary phone, which was the first vintage telephone to integrate the ringer into the main body of the phone.

Western Electric Model 500 Rotary Phone

In 1949 Western Electric manufactured and put into service the Model 500 desk phone. This classic rotary phone is the one most people associate with their childhood and is the phone that most of us visualize when we think of a black rotary phone. Although a Princess rotary phone and Trimline model followed years later, the popularity of the Model 500 was never surpassed.

That, my friends, is a brief rotary phone history.

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Calling all phone experts! What type of phone (make, model etc) was used in the Batman movie and Batman television series. Give us the real scoop on the details of this classic telephone.

No question about it, that old bold phone was a great prop on the Batman series. Who would have ever thought that 40 years later we’d still be talking about that vintage rotary dial phone? Bold old phones and rotary dial phones have been used in movie scenes for decades.

What comments do you have about the Bat Phone? What other motion pictures or television shows regularly featured the use of a vintage rotary phone? Your comments are welcome and appreciated at Rotary Phones and at our sister website, Rotary Phone.

See larger image Crosley 302 Red Desk Phone (CR60-RE) (Office Product) List Price: $59.95 USD New From: $39.77 In Stock

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To remove the finger wheel all you need is a regular size paper clip and the instructions below.

1. Put your finger in the “0″ finger hole and rotate the finger plate clockwise as far as it will go. Hold the finger wheel in this location.

2. Look on the dial plate between the numbers 0 and 9. If you look closely at the rotary phone dial you will see a small hole that goes through the plastic finger wheel.

3. Place one end of the extended paper clip into this tiny hole and press the paper clip down. Doing so releases a small clip under the dial plate that you cannot see. At the same time you are pressing the paper clip down continue to dial the phone in a clockwise fashion.

4. The finger wheel should continue to turn and will release from the underlying clip. As if by magic, the plastic rotary phone finger wheel will release and be in your hand!

Additional information about removing the finger wheel on your old phone can be found over at Dennis Markham’s website.

See how easy that was?  With care, caution and a little Google searching you can find information on how to restore your vintage rotary phone!

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