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So all you can do is listen? Things are different in old blighty.

No, no…it’s fully functional! I don’t think we can do that in the States, can we? I biffed a couple of old princess phones on the way out.

The sound ain’t bad, either.

HA!! It’s beautiful! What’s next – a vacuum tube computer? With punch cards even! 😉

“Yes? This is Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau having speaks on the Pheun. Does your dog bite?”

I bet the handset alone weighs pounds. I love it.

Be wary of the Bakelite phone! The Baekeland family has a history worthy of Miss Marple.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Daly_Baekeland

It’s quite spooky to dial a number with a number dial again. The feel of it, the sound of it…gosh, it takes me back. And a phone with a bell! The sound is a little scary, to be frank. We’re already talking about another one for the kitchen.

Very cool, df. I’ve always had a Bakelite fetish, but I didn’t know the fambly history.

“that thing at the bottom is a brass handle.

Sooooo shiiiny — and portable! Anyone else remember when exchanges were in English? My Aunt’s number started out “Kenmore six . . .” And then there were the ‘party lines’ — some friends were on one. We evil children liked to quietly pick up and listen in on a ring pattern that we knew full well was not theirs — bad kids! Anyhow, that’s not just a ‘phone, it’s an instrument — purty!

It’s beyooteeful. And yeah, they do it here, too. My mom, the Art Deco nut, got some old refurb phones from a catalog several years ago. The aren’t that purty, tho, but def old-fashioned & cool.

And thanks for the Bakelite link, McGoo. Another thing my mom was fascinated by. Wish she was still around so’s I could linky to her.

you have a phone just for your house?! That’s soooo…….retro? And cool retro phone to go with it! I might even get a landline for a phone like that.

Does anyone else get the ‘I can’t make this thing diaaaal dream?

I used to think it was just me who had nightmares where the dial stuck, or went slower… and…. slower…and… sloooooowwwwweeeerrrrr…

Apparently, it’s quite a common theme. I wonder why?

iamfelix – That excellent Bakelite link was from dfbaskwill, not me. But if it was from me, you’d be welcome!

Ah, I’m getting punchy … long day. Thanks, dfb!!

You are welcome, all. The world of plastic is wondrous isn’t it? Read the book, don’t see the movie. And try to work at something constructive instead of sponging off your grandfather’s hard-earned millions. It’s a cautionary tale of our times.

There may be a (technical) limit to the number of old phones we can have. These puppies apparently draw quite a lot of juice, and a single line only gets so much…

A Frenchie patented the rotary dial mechanism in ’22 or ’23 thereabouts.

“Yes? This is Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau having speaks on the Pheun. Does your dog bite?”

LMAO 😆 Inspector Clouseau, ah I miss the original. I refuse to see the travesty that just came out.

A thing of surpassing wantage. Want. Very much want.

“That is not my dog…”

In the US, there’s a thing called a REN (Ringer Equivalence Number), and a classic 400 or 500 series phone has a rating of 1.0. Most modern solid state phones are around a 0.3 rating or so. US telcom standards used to say 3.0 total per house (without special affordances) if I recall correctly. Not sure about British regs.

From ‘Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid’:

“You know how to dial, don’t you? You just put your finger in the hole and make a tiny little circle.”

Funny you should mention that one, Nortius. I used those very words to her Ladyship yesterday – only to get ‘lookit the geek!’ face.

Interesting we use the same terms on both sides of the pond, for once!

The phone was made when form and function were both design qualities. It is art. I am envious.

Yeah. It really is beautiful. Plus it’s sufficiently massive to double as a murder weapon, should the need arise.

Gibby can always find the murder weapon in any post.

Armybrat – we don’t have a landline either. But there is this…

http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/cell-phone/8928/

“…sufficiently massive to double as a murder weapon..”

But isn’t Bakelite brittle? Think of the cleanup! Those CSIs can find fragments in the weirdest places… 😉

I have an old phone like that, from the 60s, and it works great still – except the ringer doesn’t ring (yes, its a bell). I like dialing with a circular dial, and I like the old receiver, you can tuck it under your cheek without dialing new numbers or hanging up accidentally.

One of my good friends at Church will be a police officer. If I mention “CSI” in front of him, he goes on a long, passionate rant on how CSI is bad, wrong, and harmful.

Oh, Musli, don’t get me started! I’m a true crime fan from way back — since before Quincy (which was also bad), let alone the CSI series. The only time I ever watch a CSI is on the plane over the Atlantic, and I hoot and hop up and down in my seat every time they make a bonehead error. Which is a lot of hooting and hopping, let me tell you!

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. Then I found out there was math involved.

Ah, math. It has leveled many of us. I wish I could be a Physicist!

If I had a friend who went on long passionate rants about a subject, I would find ways to make sure that subject got brought up a lot.
Maybe you could get his wife to change his plates to a vanity plate “CSI FAN” or throw a themed CSI party for his next birthday.

I would have loved to have gone into pathology but my sooper sonic sniffer would not have faired well with ‘ripe’ or some chemical smells.

My cadaver at Medical School turned out to be imperfectly preserved. We discovered this as we dissected the heart and ascending aorta, noting that the gentleman died of a thoracic aortic aneurysm, almost always indicative of tertiary syphilis! It was hard to go back to Anatomy Class the next day. But (thankfully!) there’s always another body to fill the need.

Tertiary syphilis! My mother used to tell me about watching the old syphilitic dudes in the French Quarter in New Orleans try to walk across the street and forget how halfway across.

Her cat cadaver in nursing school had a double aorta. Woo!

A tourism advertisement in the making for the revitalization of New Orleans! It’s amazing that the French Quarter was just about the only area not wiped out by the flood.

Dawn, that was cool!

My cadaver at PT school was purple colored. I kid you not. Apparently the poor guy had some chemo or radiation right before he passed that reacted with the preservative and left him a not so attractive plum color. And he lived a hard life…we recovered a bullet.

Well, how appropriate for those of us in hunkerdown mode while the new Commie Kiddies play in Washington. A phone I can talk in or beat an intruder to death with.

I’m very into dual usage.

What a lovely old phone. What does the little button on the front do?

I WANT