Rotary Phones

The line of Princess rotary phones were first manufactured by Bell System in 1959.

Because of a built in night light feature the Princess classic rotary was ideal for use in bedrooms or other areas where the night light would function as designed. The light was built into the rotary phone dial and provided just enough light.

Do you remember the “It’s Little, It’s Lovely & It Lights” slogan that was associated Princess phones as a branded slogan? The Princess phone base was a two piece phone with a light in the dial and a separate handset that sat on top of the rotary phone base.

The Princess phone was primarily marketed toward women and teen girls and was made available in a variety of stylish colors: Moss green, pink, yellow, red, white, beige, ivory grey and turquoise.

Henry Dreyfuss, and early industrial designer, is most often given credit for the design of the Princess rotary dial phone. Working with in house engineers at Bell Labs he helped create and market the beautiful rotary telephone that came to be known as the Princess phone.

The princess phone had an external electric transformer which set it apart from it’s rotary phone cousins. This transformer was necessary to provide power to the lighted dial. The thinness of the Princess Phone also required an external ringer that was wired to the external transformer as well. Western Electric had not manufactured a ringer system that would fit inside the narrow princess phone case.

Later models of the Princess phone included a transformer built into the phone. The external transformer became a thing of the past.

Some people continue to confuse the Princess phone with the Trimline phone because both phones were more modern looking and quite different in appearance from the standard desk phone. Therefore, they were often confused for one another. However, the Trimline has the dial in the handset of the phone and this serves to clearly make it different from the Princess phone. Because both phones offer a trimmer appearance than the traditional black desk phone this confusion is understandable.

A restored Princess rotary phone is a hot collectible item at eBay and Craigslist and can command prices into the hundreds of dollars! They remain popular with both collectors and with young women and teenagers, who were the original target market for the Princess phone.