Can you turn the bell off? Most of the time it would not need to be answered from the guest room.

I have the ringers turned off not only on the guest-room phone, but also in my own room. The latter is so that I won't be wakened by wrong numbers - if I'm awake I can hear the ringing of the phone in the study.

(My guest-room phone is just a 20-year-old trimline-style phone. The color is right for the room although the style isn't, but it happened to be the phone that wasn't being used anywhere else.)

Oh, to have the wonderful service and clear audio, repair service, etc., that we had back in the day before the break-up of Bell and AT&T. Their new partnership will never be what it used to be. I hate technology when it comes to phones and cell phones. Crappy mess from China.

What a great phone!!

Yes -- I do remember rotary dials!~

Does anyone remember when telephone had "exchanges" -- and then your personal "number" My very FIRST telephone number was: Crescent 8 -- 8558. (late 1950s-early 60s in Toronto)

LOL!! What about the infamous "party lines" ????

My husband's grandmother still has her old rotary phone (from the 60's) in her kitchen. Whenever I go there and need to make a phone call, she makes me use that one. What a pain with 10 digit dialing. :) It's not as cute as that one though, just a plain phone.

Does anyone remember when telephone had "exchanges" -- and then your personal "number" My very FIRST telephone number was: Crescent 8 -- 8558

STerling 2-5593.

We had some confusion, though, because there were a LEnox exchange (LE) and a LehIgh exchange (LI). This worked fine when calls were connected by operators, not so well when everyone had dial phones.

I remember when you had a hand crank and answered the phone by the number of rings: Ours was 2 longs and a short.

Wow, I don't remember hand cranks and answering by rings, but I do remember party lines. We never had one, DF was a doctor and we had a private phone line. Our exchange was Hunter LOL. Rotary dialing - MIL still has hers too.

I remember my neighbor's parents had similar phones in their bedroom in a sort of faux Louis style decor. Funny I don't think of that phone as "retro" but the date certainly makes it "retro".

This is my "new" vintage phone:

It's from the late 30s/early 40s and is the same phone used on I Love Lucy. Got it on ebay for about $30 - seller wasn't sure if it worked or not since it didn't have a modern jack. Got it here, replaced the wall cord with one that had a modern jack, and found out that it didn't work. Lucky for me there is a whole web-based community dedicated to restoring old phones - I was able to find the wiring schematic online and with a lot of phone consultations from my dad (most of which sounded a lot like "I see that the red wire is touching the black thingamajig in the corner and the other black thingamajig has a green wire that connects it to the brass thingamajig - is that right?"), was able to fix it good as new.

It has the most satisfying "BBBRRRRIIIINNNNGGG!" when it rings...course dh says it scares the carp out of him when he's sleeping. I don't care - I love it. And I bet I have some of the only preschool kids in America who know how to dial a rotary phone, LOL!

lkplatow ~ That looks like the phone we had when I was little (born in 1951). It was in our apartment on 34th Street and Madison Avenue. Those were the days of shopping at the original flagship store of Macy's just up the street, B. Altman's, Lord & Taylor's, and Macy's "moving" Christmas windows, walking around the corner to the Empire State Building, hailing an original yellow checkered cab, and ice skating at Wollman Memorial Skating Rink in Central Park. I would love to have the same one today. And I do remember that ring...bbrrrrring!

Mrs. Marv, what a lot people have missed if they never saw the beautiful "moving" Christmas windows --- a part of what made Christmas so wonderful. My children loved them as well but they were soon gone not long after their arrival in this world. Alas, it will never be the same again.

I'm glad that I was able to bring back some great memories for some of you!! My retro comment wasn't about the style of the phone but the fact that it is a rotary dialer.

Lkplatow, my grandmother had that phone until the late 70's when she moved out of her apartment and the phone company would not let her take it with her. What a fit she had. LOL Those phones were so heavy back then.

I do remember exchanges and party lines. I recall my mom and grandmother talking about various friends and relatives who had gotten private lines and what a big deal that was.

The other reason I am so excited about getting an older phone is that I am definitely a Ma Bell baby! My mom worked as a long distance operator for NY Telephone for a gazillion years and was the only job she ever had. Also, shortly after I was out of college I too went to work for AT&T and met my DH there who started out in the 70's at Western Electric.

As a kid I used to play with her headset and it weighed a ton. It was similar to the headsets from the old movies and the one Lilly Tomlin wore on Laugh-in. A little known secret is that many of the telephone operators who wore those headsets eventually lost hearing in the ear the receiver was on because of the weight of the headset.

Finally, I like the ring and now my DH has gotten used to it. What I will do is turn the ringer off though when guests stay in that room.

I LOVELOVELOVE old phones! I bought a brown push button 1970's wall phone with a stretchy cord for my office. I found it at the ReStore. Don't get me started on phones--I despise all the phones that have been manufactured since about the mid 1980's. My mother had a red rotary phone on the desk when we were kids (1960's) and that was *the* only phone in the house. I wish I had that phone! And remember how women with their nails done always dialed the rotary phone with a pencil? Does anyone miss how you could crook the receiver on your shoulder/neck and actually use your hands when you talked on the phone? And yes, the ringing of an old phone is a heck of a lot better than what we have with new phones.

In Toronto -- Eaton's downstore store (a real true-to-life department store years ago!) had "moving" Christmas windows.

And of course -- their retail rival -- Simpson's -- had those windows too! Always fun to see! :)

UNion5-6894
I just realized a couple of weeks ago my grandfather worked for a union and his phone started with UNion. hmmmm

anyway I thought you had to had a pulse tone phone for it to work? How do you deal with
If you speak English press 1
etc?

Msjay, most of the recorded messages still have the prompt to hang on if you are dialing from a rotary phone. I don't typically use this phone to dial most calls, I use the cordless.

I did make a few phone calls on it though and talk about patience! Lisa is right, it takes forever to dial 10 digit numbers. It is still cool though.

Hmm, maybe I should replace the Trimline in my (country) guest room with one of these:

I love all these retro and old phones. I wanted a white retro telephone for my bedroom but they were out of stock and then I realized the ringer can't be turned off and I need that option on a phone so I can sleep and not have to keep pulling out the phone cord. I just adore these phones shown on this post. Thanks for sharing.

P.S. Deborahnj, I love your crystal clock on your bed side table. Please, where did you buy that clock? It is adorable. Your telephone is so cool! I love retro phones.

Mrsmarv, You are from my neck of the woods! The exchange also told where in the city you were located! We were GR3-5137. GR was the Gramercy area. MU was Murray Hill and so on.

I really like old phones- mainly b/c they were built well. I just bought a 1972 red, table top rotary phone for my family room. I love the ring- except it is really loud. I had to turn the ring off on my other phones and I can hear this phone ring outside w/ the windows closed. My parents had a similar one- black-gold coloring & I think more in the americanna design. Everyone loved it and work well.- I think she still has it-think I'm gonna try to sneak it out of her house :)

My grandmother had that exact phone, except she changed out the reciever cord to the longest cord I've ever seen so she could talk on the phone in any room in the house. She only had one phone jack.

Our exchange was ORegon...we were at the southern end of Manhattan.

Lynn, I purchased the crystal clock at HomeGoods in Parsippany on RTE 46 back in 2000. I totally forgot it was on the nightstand.

Callie, where did you purchase your red phone? Did you find it on ebay?

Jenanla, wow! I do remember back when there was usually only only 1 jack maybe 2 in a household. Kitchen and bedroom. Those long cords were great for awhile and then they always got tangled up and/or stretched out.

Thank you deborahnj for letting me know. I live near HomeGoods in Parsippany and I have not been there in while so I will try stopping there to look for a cute clock like this as well as see what kind of lamps they have.

Lynn, glad that I was able to help. When that particular Homegoods opened, I used to go everyday as I worked near there. It was my first introduction to HG and needless to say, 7 years later, I'm still hooked. LOL

jenala that was hilarious!!! my how things have changed huh? I am all about retro and I love all the phones on here. I brought my grandmother a new phone to replace her old one which was probably old as me and she refuses to look at the caller ID. she also does not check the messages. some people find progress so hard....