Yellow Pages<tm>.
I guess this one was before you let your fingers do the walking.
'Hey Joe, where ya goin' with that phone in your hand?'
But seriously, in these days we take for granted that circuits, whether subscriber loops or international long-haul trunks, are plentiful and always at your beck and call. In the WWII era, party lines, 4 and 8 party in Ma Bell land, up to 12 party in Indie land, were commonplace. Long Distance trunks were in many cases scarce and in high demand.
Ads such as this were common, and rightly so, encouraging subscribers to keep the lines open for servicemembers during the peak evening hours.
Many of Ma Bell's vintage ads feature anthropomorphic and larger-than-life phones.
This one has to be Ma Bell's answer to Reddy Kilowatt. ;-)
They were bragging about a 'short' two-minute time to set up a LD call. Remember, this was back in the days when Long Distance was totally manual. The calls had to be manually worked through Ma Bell's network, often through one or more intermediary offices, and through an 'inward' Long Distance operator at the far end.
These two ads (above and below) feature similar sets of what I would call an unusual configuration, 200 series sets with F series handsets, no dial.
These had to be from the era when manual service was still standard and presumed to be what the majority of the viewers of the ads were accustomed to. I never experienced manual service first hand, but I do know that it was commonplace, even in some parts of major metropolitan areas, into the 1950s. I would guess the vintage of the ad immediately above to be 1930s, showing the 'high tech' F handset, but not rubbing it in to the noses of the viewers that dial service was not available in many areas.
This is also the earliest ad I've seen where the '2368' number was used.
Although the number tag is not entirely shown, it's obvious from the spacing that it's intended to be EX-2368 and not something like EX3-2368. The 2-4 numbering pattern was very common in the 1930s in areas served by both manual offices and newer 'machine switching' offices.
Hmmmm .... I wonder if, during the heyday of Ma Bell's manual service, they had offices such as QUigley or QUeensbridge or ... ;-)
The family at EX-2368 gets a new 302 set, and my guess is that this ad is late 1940s, with 2-4 dialing still commonplace, but before the 500 series was common.
The number morphs to Main 0-2368 in this ad featuring the 302.
And in this featuring the 500.
Phone 'enthusiasts' will be quick to point out that zero, as the third digit of the office code (NNX) was not allowed until the late 1960s.
As I said ...
... the quality of the voice in Ma Bell's glory days was second to none! As critical as I've been of Ma over the years, this is the one thing I admit was superior during the days of one system, one solution.
Likewise ...
The quality of the sets was second to none as well! The 500 was built like a tank. It could take any kind of abuse that an ornery kid, an angry parent, or a curious phr^H^H^Henthusiast could ever deliver. I think the MTBF (mean time between failures) of a late 60s vintage 500 was measured in centuries!
(We now return to our regular program.)
Tell the kids that 'Uncle Jim' is coming over (but he's not really your uncle).
'Hi baby! He's gone and won't be back until tomorrow night. C'mon over. The kids are, uh, occupied!' ;-)
My Aunt had a Princess<tm> phone in her bedroom, early model, sky-blue pink IIRC, rotary dial, maybe 1961 or so.
This one did not have a ringer in the set. It was on the baseboard, color-coordinated with the set, almost like a throwback to the 202 days. It had that lighted dial, powered by the 'brick on a string' transformer plugged into the wall socket.
Then about 1967 Mom got a Princess phone. This one was again rotary dial, but had the ringer in the set. She refused to let the installer staple a line for the light across the baseboard to a 'brick on a string' at the nearest wall socket, which was way across the room, so at the time of installation, this Princess was dark.
It's always handy having a son who was a budding phr^H^H^Hphone enthusiast! I found the correct run of quad down in the cellar, carefully dissected it with the X-acto knife, pieced out the yellow/black pair and connected it to the building's 24 volt doorbell transformer, but with a 'one goes out they all go out' series Christmas lamp in each leg as a ballast and to protect from any shorts. Hey, we don't want a meltdown of 100' of quad in a wall, do we? ;-)
Let there be light!
It worked just fine and I was her hero -- for maybe a day or so. ;-)
It was there and working until they moved out some years later. I never de-installed it. Hey, after they moved it was no longer my problem, right? ;-) I'm sure that TPC would have had a cow if they ever came upon it.
Phoning is fun !!
Just pick up Mommy's phone, dial 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 and listen to the recording, rinse, repeat. ;-)
'{sigh} Was it as good for you as it was for me?' ;-)
This is a rather unusual set for the bedroom.
The baby blue 500 is appropriate for the boudoir I admit. So is the rarely-seen dial light (available for a semi-reasonable monthly charge), but notice the two-line turn-key.
Maybe it's so she can listen in on the Teenline<tm> after they are supposed to be asleep! ;-)
Bedroom phones were promoted heavily during the 1950s and 1960s.
As well as extension phones anywhere.
'Congratulations again, Mrs. Bratter, and may there be many extensions!' ;-)
Phones in color!
Notice the straight, non-coiled handset cables. Coiled cables 'spring cords' were optional, with a recurring monthly charge, into the 1960s.
Speaking of which ...
Where does the handset cable terminate?
Your phone away from home.
In this day and age, we think of the pay phone as being in the same category as the dodo bird and the Oldsmobile. They are becoming few and far between.
'Mommy, what's a phone booth?'
If the pay phone is an endangered species, the phone booth is essentially extinct in the wild! You just don't see these anymore.
Back in the days, Ma Bell did promote the comfort and convenience of the pay phone, in the privacy of your own phone booth.
And a local call was only a dime! Cheaper if you had a straight pin and knew how to use it! ;-)
Hey! Curb your dog, Missy!
How handy ...
... a 500 on the patio by the lake!
Wasn't this the thing that Dr. Brown was wearing on his head in the first BTTF?
The Fone Man cometh!
'Hi, my name's Krusty, and I'm from The Fone Company. Let's go into the bedroom so I can {wink-wink} install my cable.' ;-)
302G-3F
Standard issue from around WWII until the mid 1950s.
Is it my imagination, or does that box appear too small for the set and the handset?
I hope you enjoyed today's little digression.
LMAO!
ReplyDelete> and through an 'inward' Long Distance operator at the far end.
ReplyDelete.
The bulk of inbound toll calls were handled simply by a "Toll Unit" (as opposed to a Local or D.A. unit/switchboard).
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Granted, some toll offices (operating rooms) probably had entire positions dedicated to "Inward" calls (routing code xxx+121, IIRC) while others probably had simply a few rows/strips/multiple of jacks at each position in the unit.
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That's how it was for me when called back into Operator service after Omaha's tornado in 1975. It was then that I learned how to deal with a distant Operator AND her panic-stricken customer on the line at the same time.
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When a call to Inward came in it was because an Operator in another place needed help: "Check for coin phone", "Try a local number" (The toll call to which is misbehaving when called.), etc.
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I can't remember for sure but, by the time I was a cordboard Operator, all positions answered Inward calls as they were pretty mundane. I can only imagine what it must have been like in the MANUAL toll days. Even in 1973, as a Toll Operator, I was spoiled by DIRECT calling and only occasionally speaking to another Operator to do my job.