I bought an old rotary phone for nostalgia and its working and on my desk. I love it, and still use it. I got a black one to match the one my gran had in the 70's
We still had and used rotary phones until the mid 80's I think. In the mid 70's they changed the way we dialed a phone number. To call locally within our dialing area we only had to dial the last 4 digits. Then we had to also dial the 3 digits for our dialing area. I still have the same phone number of my parents. It's older than me! "Dialing a phone number". Makes you think of all the words and terms we still use that refer to specific things that aren't known by most people nowadays.
I have an old wooden wall phone in my guest room that worked fine back when we where hooked up to maw bell. I grew up with with the rotory phone. Good times back in the 50's and 60's. Great video thanks
Scout when I was a kid we had the touch tone phones in my house with the 50ft cords that could reach the phone to both ends of the house. However my Grandfather still had rotary phones at his Machine Shop. I can still here him dialing numbers. He would always get on to my mom because she would use a Bic Pen to dial and scratch up his phone. The one in his office was black, but all the other ones in the shop were machine gray. Great memories. Miss him so much!
Great video. I have a rotary hooked up at my house as a novelty. I'm 64 so lots of memories. My dad was cheap and had the plan from the phone company where they'd give you a fixed charge if you made no more than 60 calls per month. With two teen age kids that didn't last long. One of our phones had no dial. Thanks John!
I love those old telephones. I'm too young to have used them but I used to play with them as a kid because they were hanging around the house after they were upgraded.
I still have a candle stick rotary phone.. and yes it still works as long as it's hooked to an older analog copper system. That you have was the phone you could let someone know you were not happy by slamming it down 😁😁😁 plus the mile long coiled cord to get at gles up in
There are at least 10 times during this video that I wanted to give you the thumbs up! I used to be a "phone guy" in North Jersey where I installed and serviced telephone systems and networks, which eventually evolved into VoIP. Fun fact, the 212 area code was chosen for the most populated city of New York because it was the quickest area code to dial on the rotary phone! That battery tester should be able to test the common 12 V, 7 Ah (130 CCA) or 8 Ah (150 CCA) batteries that are often found in UPS systems, fire/burglar alarm panels, etc... it's gonna be a great 4 years, but I am still praying for more unity and peace! I'm not sure why the acronym WWJD stopped being used, but let's bring it back! Hope I didn't ruffle any feathers! 🙂
Picked up an original candle stick phone at an auction…so cool…I see Elliot Ness using one…it’s a bit heavy for a phone when you hold the thing while talking….great video as usual…🖖
My raw steamer for upholstery has a sight glass . I forget how much pressure it builds to. I will have to pull it apart and check it. Your meter would be an asset to have. I grew up with the wall phones from western electric. I do have the older version that is all metal. It came from Southern Pacific Railroad. My neighbor used it in the electrical office. He was their electrician. Good show thank You
Hey John that brought back a few old memories. The second picture of the phone book was from Staten Island , New York where I grew up and one of the streets shown was where my wife lived and another is where we lived at our first apartment together. What a memory. Also in my job and at my parents house I have changed several gauge glasses , mostly due to dry rubber packing rings. Rotary phones , that's all we had. Thanks for the memories from a retired Operating engineer.
In the late 60s we used to get free calls on pay phones by quickly tapping the disconnect button you took the number away from 10 i.e. if you wanted 7 you tapped 3 times on the disconnect button 4 was 6 taps etc. we saved a very small amount a few cents at a time, from New Zealand
I worked for a company in Rochester, NY that made those phones, Stromberg-Carlson. They moved the actual phone manufacturing to Charlottesville, VA. We could buy the different parts and different colors and change our phones. Our service provider was Rochester Tel, and they offered black, white and green. In the early seventies orange telephones were popular, but not offered by Rochester Tel. So you can guess what color wall phone we had in our first apartment, friends and family would always comment on that orange wall phone. When they were changing colors in the molding machine the first ones after the color change were always a mix or marbleized, no two were the same due to the mix of plastic pellets. I had one that had a brown and gray marble effect, very unique.
When I was growing up in Whitestone my family had an oil burner with steam heat .and we had to check the water level every day through the site glass and add water just about every day. We had the exact black phone that you showed today in our living room and the exchange was FLushing 9-1674. Brings b many memories.
Nice clean up on the phone John! I do remember the phone. I think I was the first one of my siblings to take out my phone and they couldn’t believe how I was going to get by without it. Now they know 😂. My neighbor just took his out about a year ago. Thank You for all you do. Have an awesome weekend!
That phone brings back memories. Back in the day in the office we would take the microphone piece out of the handset of our coworkers phones as a practical joke. Good times. They were also durable, I dropped kicked one once in college during a disagreement in the dorm and it worked great afterwards!
I remember using the old rotary phones and kind of miss them. When I was a kid up in Westchester our phone number exchange was Medford 1 (ME1). Also had the extra long cord so it would stretch into the next room. The other satisfying thing was when you were pissed off at someone and slam the receiver down. Can’t do that with a cell phone.
We have a wall mount dial phone here. It still works sound both ways is a little soft. We use it mainly for scam calls. Whenever we have to provide a phone number on line we use that land line. It was in our barn growing up. I found it a few years ago at my parent's house. They must have saved it when they tore the old barn down.
On the farm, we were on a party line and our old Monarch hand cranker rang two longs two shorts (rings) when the call was ours. Girtie Fischer was the solitary phone operator in town for many, many years until 1966.
I still have my roatery phone. But I just recently disconnected it and now just use my cell for everything, including watching you. Funny, I can remember the phone numbers from the 1970s, but I can't remember anyone's cell numbers.. Fun fact the roatery phone worked during a black out, unlike the push-button phones of the day.😀👍🏻🇺🇲
Absolutely a great day in America, Scout! And the far away future looks bright as well! I have an old phone similar to yours. Mine is black but has the plug in line. My Father-in-law was a career Ma Bell employee. He saved one of the old two-piece phones to make a lamp out of (It is the kind Sheriff Taylor used on the old Andy Griffith show). He never got around to it so now I have it. It is amazing how heavy those phones were. Great show as usual. God Bless America! ❤
Enjoyable video, Growing up we had three rotary phones, one in the Livingroom, one in the bedroom and a wall mounted one in the kitchen with cord that was like 20ft long 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I worked two summers doing maintenance at the Silvermine Tavern. Every Saturday I would have to drain a gallon or two from each boiler and then check the sight glass to make sure it refilled to the correct level. The old coffee urns also had sight glasses for the water jackets. About once a year it seemed someone would forget to check and they would spring a leak in one of the urns and it would have to be repaired. I think they switched to the kind that lets you make a couple of carafes at once because iit was too hard to find someone willing to work on the old ones.
You took me down memory lane with that phone John. I’ve had a hankering to replace my cordless DECT home phones with one of them for ages. I think I’m gonna do it! Funny story about the old phones. My friend Paul used to make long phone calls to his girlfriend, so his mum got a phone lock, to keep the bill down. However, I knew a hack to circumvent the lock. Did you know that if you tapped the disconnect tabs at top of the phone quickly, it was the same as using the number wheel? E.g. if you wanted to dial 123, you tap the top buttons once, wait a second, then tap them twice quickly, wait a second then tap 3 times quickly. If you did that for all numbers, you could make a phone call. Cheers
I have one of those old phones. I bought it at a hamfest to show to the grandkids who thought it was very cool. I don't use it but it does work. I need to clean mine up like yours - good tips!
I remember the rotary dial phone from my childhood. It was a great phone but the touchtone phones that eventually came out were really neat. The phone looks very good and it was fascinating seeing the insides of one. The glass thickness on the oil burner furnace was interesting and I did not know the glass thinned out the longer it was used. This was a great tutorial! Thanks for sharing it.
What a great show and a nice old phone. I'd love to replace all my cordless phones (that fall over if you look at them too hard) with sturdy equipment like that. Guess I'm old fashion anyway, still having a land line. And yes, it's a great day to be an American!
I didn't know that about the glass, but I do know that after so many years of service windows in public buildings are turned upside down because the glass gets thinner at the top and thicker at the bottom. If it's not rotated within a certain amount of time, it will become brittle a break. It would be an interesting ASMR experiment to see how many young people would know what the sound of dialing phone is.
I was always told that and then relatively recently I was told it’s a bunch of old phooey, so I just don’t know. It always sounded logical to me as glass is a fluid
Just a quick note, have you tried "brasso" metal Polish on the handset, I've used it on an old bakelite phone (1950's) in England, and it works a treat. I would do a test area first.. Cheers, I used to be a telephone engineer in Britain.
I am afraid that old rotary phone brings back memories. I remember trying to make a call, if you know what I mean, and chickening out on that last number. Phone turned out great!
That phone brought back memories, we had both a wall phone and a desk phone like you cleaned up, I was happy when the touch tone phones came out, a lot faster to dial!!
When i was serving my apprenticeship, the company had its own exchange, it was i think based on the Stowger system. Invented by an american called Almon B Stowger, from Kansas. Ours was a good bit more modern but the principal was the same. The noise was incredible. It took up all the space in a big room, that was extremely hot. Replaced by a silent box 3ft X 4ft. I can remember the clatter of the selectors to this day. Great video.
Hey Señor Juan, Here in México, even in the nineties rhe only phone company (TELMEX) only offer its service with those wheel dial phones, even on the streets. My family had two phones they were green or the other color was brown. It was a nice feeli g to use those phones, I do not know what happened to the ones we had at home. Saludos señor American.
There was a rotary dial phone on our basement wall when we moved into our house. A few years ago my 6 year old grandson was visiting. He has his own smart phone and pretty much does everything. When I showed him the wall phone, he kept putting his finger in and pushing the dial. Didn't know you had to put your finger in and rotate the dial.
I remember the rotary dial phones well......and I also remember how ecstatic I was when I was finally able to get the new push button number phone. It was 1980. At the end of 1979 I had taken the contractors license exam, and after a certain amount of days passed you could call the Contractors License Board to see if you passed, or you could wait another month or 3 for a letter. I must have dialed that number on the rotary 500 times before I ever got through and was thoroughly DONE with rotary phones at that point! BTW, yes I did pass, still a licensed contractor 44 years later. Great video as always John. Didn't know about the boiler sight glass, but then not many in California have now, or ever did have a boiler. What about the gland nut? Did the service man have one?
Thanks John, a funny thing with car batteries, in the early days when batteries were less reliable they had meters that displayed the performance of the battery, nowadays we only know when it stops working ! My parents had a dial phone until the provider stopped supporting them, why pay to replace soemthign that worked, in the early days it operated on a party line and my sister used to answer and regardless of whom, if it was a. man she would say Daddy as my Dad was often away at sea. My Dad brought an old dial phone home for me from work so I could dis-assemble It, so I know the innards very well, I spent years taking things apart before I learned how to put them back together again !
Another good one John…I had to save the fan club picture, it was too funny and probably close to true. The phone bit brought back so many memories since we shared a phone with my mom’s Aunt’s sister who was our landlady. The phone was two floors down but fortunately we didn’t get too many calls….🤣…Also noticed how huge your burner is….but so amazing how stuff from the old days lasted so much longer…thank you again!
Have you seen the videos where they place an old phone like that in front of teenagers today and tell them to work out what it is and what it does? It’s hilarious.
When I was young me and my dad visited a telephone exchange open day, and in the room where all the action was were racks and racks of from what I can remember were blocks of glass metal plates with a selector running up and down corresponding to people dialing numbers - each little “machine” for every separate phone in town. And another interesting idea I learned ( I don’t know about outside the uk ) but the ring was designed in such a way that you can’t ignore it - and it becomes annoying if you do
Ahhh, ASMR shop sounds… my angle grinder with a flap wheel, my compressor trying to keep up, my band saw struggling to make its way through tool steel, and in the summer my enormous shop fan pulling air out after using strong solvents…. So restful! 😂
I had a tan phone sitting on my desk in the Navy for years and that thing wouldn't ring for months at a time. I was sitting there one day and the thing rang. I remember staring at it thinking this is bad news. I picked it up and it was my step mother calling me to tell me my grandmother had died. I went home and was a pall bearer in my dress blues but I asked her, how'd you get that number and she got it from the red cross who had called the base and they looked it up by name. That was the good Ole days for sure.
Nice show, interesting about the site glass, never knew that. I still have a land line as a backup to my cell phone, nice thing about the phone system back then is they still worked when the power went out.
Yup... phones were powered all the way back at the telco central office by a huge -48 VDC battery bank... often the size of two 1973 Mustang Mach 1 cars stacked on top of each other 😀
I remember those phones. All pay phones were somewhat the same. As a kid in High School I used to unscrew the ear piece and touch the wire to ground and that would give you the dial tone bypassing the need to insert the money in the phone. I then could take the dime and by a chocolate bar.
John i grew up with rotary phones and you just never see one fail! I remember my grandparents had party lines where they lived. I remember my grandma telling me not to answer her phone as it wasn't for her . 😮
Great Day, indeed!!! God Bless America!!! Scoutcrafter, thank you so much for the information, entertainment and diversion your videos have provided me, especially over the past few years. You beez de man!
I take my bike battery out every winter and keep it under the stairs. And all the tool batteries come up the house in a tote every evening. It makes them last.
Well done Scout. I just looked up College Point on maps and it looks like a nice spot. Those old rotary phones, we can’t use them anymore in Australia as the whole system was changed to VOIP some years ago. The most frustrating part of those was that some dick head decided that 000 was the best number to call emergency services. Can you imagine, someone is having a heart attack and you’re trying to dial 000. I bet they thought that was real funny. Also, quite often after an American tv show had finished we would get a notice on the tv to dial 000 in an emergency and not 911. Cheers mate, Stuart 🇦🇺
Good show today. You know I love the old phones, but we don’t have any that are in use here. Just display models. I hate when one part turns color or something, but that could be because that was changed out by the phone company years ago. They would bring refurbished and even painted parts sometimes. I did not now that about the sight glass. Good to know.
The sight glass gets etched. It has to do with the PH of the water. I was a burner guy before I retired, but not a water treatment expert. The PH of a steam boiler should be around 9-10 if I recall. You can get PH strips at a drug store to check the PH. To low can cause corrosion and to high can cause foaming in the water and difficulty steaming.
Hi Scout crafter I remember always trying to get out the part of the handset cord that would go in the opposite direction sometimes there would be all kinds of spots like that it would take a while to get them all out the next time you would use the phone there would be back never figured out what caused that. People would use those handsets as a weapon in the movies
18:51 that’s why old timers tap the glass - to gauge whether it is time to replace. Either it gives low-to-no response, a high response, or shatters on-the-spot. See some sight glass? Give it a tap. At first you won’t know what the sound means but over time you will develop this skill of gauging the thickness of glass based on a flick of the finger or rap of the nail
Rotary phone! All you said plus usually the "telephone technician/installer" was a neighbor or family friend and always tested it before he left. He would also help with installing the color cord that Mom wanted to match the phone. Oh, and a long cord so she could talk and cook. Always tangled badly. lol Our first "fancy phone" was a lighted Princess Phone. Nice for night dialing your girlfriend under the cover. Our town used only 4 numbers to call locally. Long distance (maybe 25 miles away) cost extra per min. Telling my age. Thanks.
TGIF! Funny the wife and I been watching a BBC series Midwives of something like thaf..anyways, just the other day, I asked did they not have black phone over there..lol.. everyone that shows up in a scene of the show is colored...so I was tickled to see yours black.. growing up i had no clue they had colored phones lol.. and I got in trouble a few time for taking it apart. Lol.. have a great weekend!
Hi John, In 1961 my family moved across the state of Missouri. My parents ordered a phone and we were on a 10 party line, 9 other families. Each family had a series of long and short rings. Each time the phone would ring you had to listen to the rings to see if the call was yours. Each call would ring in all ten homes, night or day. This didn't work to well with three teenagers. My parents were on a list for a private line. When we got the private line we were sure happy. I actually retired from the original phone company. Was that a Western Electric phone? Enjoy all your videos.
I sadly never had the chance to use a rotery phone. I remember my grandmother having one in her old farm's hallway I think, though that might be one of those early button ones in the same shape style as the rotary ones. My girlfriend says her mom and dad had one she used though. I wish I could connect one to my mobile phone, so I could use one, beats calling with a tile and way more style!
@@alexstools A channel called Heavy Metal Horizons has a video "Connect Any Landline Phone To Your Cell Phone! (even old rotary phones!)".........Shows how simple it is to set up and it's only about 40 Bucks.
I have those sight glasses on the boilers at work and they burst and blow out regularly so we change them every year. If you get a slight leak it just cascades from there as well
They have a way of hooking old rotary phones up to a cell phone and you can actually use the rotary dial. It's a bluetooth connection so you don't have to run a wire to your cell.
Exchange was Twining 9 in Jackson Heights. But man, you’ve got a reversal in the coil of your handset wire - THE JOBS NOT DONE - those reverses and spiral twisting on the coils always made me crazy specially on the extra long wire on the kitchen wall mounted phone
I used to hate that sound the phone made i think it was when you didnt hang it up correctly . It sounded like an old woman screaming hi and low like a French police car . It even scared me when I was little .
Grew up using the old rotary phones. I remember a buddy of mine his Dad was really tight fisted and he would put a lock on the on the rotor plate to keep people from using the phone when he wasn't home and we would get round it by using the 2 little buttons the handset rests on to tap out the number we wanted to call. The first phone we had that I remember as a kid wasn't even a plug in type it was hard wired into the wall by the phone company.
Sleeping better than I have in four years--things are looking up! I would have bet anything steam didn't wear out glass. Also. Who else felt cheated SC didn't cut more rope???😢
Uhh….yeah!!! Who doesn’t know that steam wears glass down? 😏lol.John all you need now is a red rotor phone and you can call your boy for the next 4 years!!! Haha…have a great weekend! See ya Monday.
Hey John. I hated those rotary phones and having the finger slip on the high numbers. Thank goodness we now have phones that cost over $1000 dollars. 🙄 Did you happen to see my email about the bottle jacks from Ellis' email? I went there today and there was a boat load of tools and a bunch of large sized jacks. I know you don't collects tools anymore but who can resist.
Inside threading is a real pain on my lathe. I heard there is an old plumbing supply store in Astoria that has every old plumbing part you could ever need. 😃👍
I bought an old rotary phone for nostalgia and its working and on my desk. I love it, and still use it. I got a black one to match the one my gran had in the 70's
Fun fact (being a collector) Aurora in Hempstead used old phones to make the Vibrators and Thunder Jet bodies….
We still had and used rotary phones until the mid 80's I think. In the mid 70's they changed the way we dialed a phone number.
To call locally within our dialing area we only had to dial the last 4 digits. Then we had to also dial the 3 digits for our dialing area. I still have the same phone number of my parents. It's older than me!
"Dialing a phone number". Makes you think of all the words and terms we still use that refer to specific things that aren't known by most people nowadays.
I’m positive about our future…like I have not been for a while….great video!
Same here! A long while! 😃👍🇺🇸
I have an old wooden wall phone in my guest room that worked fine back when we where hooked up to maw bell. I grew up with with the rotory phone. Good times back in the 50's and 60's. Great video thanks
Scout when I was a kid we had the touch tone phones in my house with the 50ft cords that could reach the phone to both ends of the house. However my Grandfather still had rotary phones at his Machine Shop. I can still here him dialing numbers. He would always get on to my mom because she would use a Bic Pen to dial and scratch up his phone. The one in his office was black, but all the other ones in the shop were machine gray. Great memories. Miss him so much!
Yes! I remember people dialing with a pen or pencil eraser. 😂👍
Another great shop sound is a sharp hand plane taking a wood shavings! Thanks
Totally!
Great video. I have a rotary hooked up at my house as a novelty. I'm 64 so lots of memories. My dad was cheap and had the plan from the phone company where they'd give you a fixed charge if you made no more than 60 calls per month. With two teen age kids that didn't last long. One of our phones had no dial. Thanks John!
I love those old telephones. I'm too young to have used them but I used to play with them as a kid because they were hanging around the house after they were upgraded.
I still have a candle stick rotary phone.. and yes it still works as long as it's hooked to an older analog copper system. That you have was the phone you could let someone know you were not happy by slamming it down 😁😁😁 plus the mile long coiled cord to get at gles up in
I have both a rotary and a touch tone in my shop. A wonderful model 500 Henry Dreyfuss design.
There are at least 10 times during this video that I wanted to give you the thumbs up! I used to be a "phone guy" in North Jersey where I installed and serviced telephone systems and networks, which eventually evolved into VoIP. Fun fact, the 212 area code was chosen for the most populated city of New York because it was the quickest area code to dial on the rotary phone! That battery tester should be able to test the common 12 V, 7 Ah (130 CCA) or 8 Ah (150 CCA) batteries that are often found in UPS systems, fire/burglar alarm panels, etc... it's gonna be a great 4 years, but I am still praying for more unity and peace! I'm not sure why the acronym WWJD stopped being used, but let's bring it back! Hope I didn't ruffle any feathers! 🙂
Those phones were so well designed, over built and ergonomic too! The unity will come when the main stream media is gone. 😃👍🇺🇸
@ScoutCrafter I agree! Nothing good comes from them anymore!
Picked up an original candle stick phone at an auction…so cool…I see Elliot Ness using one…it’s a bit heavy for a phone when you hold the thing while talking….great video as usual…🖖
The original ones were really heavy and well-built. 😃👍
My raw steamer for upholstery has a sight glass . I forget how much pressure it builds to. I will have to pull it apart and check it. Your meter would be an asset to have. I grew up with the wall phones from western electric. I do have the older version that is all metal. It came from Southern Pacific Railroad. My neighbor used it in the electrical office. He was their electrician. Good show thank You
Hey John that brought back a few old memories. The second picture of the phone book was from Staten Island , New York where I grew up and one of the streets shown was where my wife lived and another is where we lived at our first apartment together. What a memory. Also in my job and at my parents house I have changed several gauge glasses , mostly due to dry rubber packing rings. Rotary phones , that's all we had. Thanks for the memories from a retired Operating engineer.
Love Staten Island! 😃👍
In the late 60s we used to get free calls on pay phones by quickly tapping the disconnect button you took the number away from 10 i.e. if you wanted 7 you tapped 3 times on the disconnect button 4 was 6 taps etc. we saved a very small amount a few cents at a time, from New Zealand
Love the rotary phone. You can still slam the phone down for angry effect snd the sound.
I worked for a company in Rochester, NY that made those phones, Stromberg-Carlson. They moved the actual phone manufacturing to Charlottesville, VA. We could buy the different parts and different colors and change our phones. Our service provider was Rochester Tel, and they offered black, white and green. In the early seventies orange telephones were popular, but not offered by Rochester Tel. So you can guess what color wall phone we had in our first apartment, friends and family would always comment on that orange wall phone. When they were changing colors in the molding machine the first ones after the color change were always a mix or marbleized, no two were the same due to the mix of plastic pellets. I had one that had a brown and gray marble effect, very unique.
When we still had a land line we had a phone like that because they would work when the power went out .The touch tone one needed ac power to work .
Yes! The phone company always had its own generators! 😃👍
When I was growing up in Whitestone my family had an oil burner with steam heat .and we had to check the water level every day through the site glass and add water just about every day. We had the exact black phone that you showed today in our living room and the exchange was FLushing 9-1674. Brings b many memories.
Nice clean up on the phone John! I do remember the phone. I think I was the first one of my siblings to take out my phone and they couldn’t believe how I was going to get by without it. Now they know 😂. My neighbor just took his out about a year ago. Thank You for all you do. Have an awesome weekend!
The right man at the right time🙏. I still remember dropping the handset once on my bare foot. Whew!
That phone brings back memories. Back in the day in the office we would take the microphone piece out of the handset of our coworkers phones as a practical joke. Good times. They were also durable, I dropped kicked one once in college during a disagreement in the dorm and it worked great afterwards!
😂😂😂
LOL!!!
I remember using the old rotary phones and kind of miss them. When I was a kid up in Westchester our phone number exchange was Medford 1 (ME1). Also had the extra long cord so it would stretch into the next room. The other satisfying thing was when you were pissed off at someone and slam the receiver down. Can’t do that with a cell phone.
We have a wall mount dial phone here. It still works sound both ways is a little soft. We use it mainly for scam calls. Whenever we have to provide a phone number on line we use that land line. It was in our barn growing up. I found it a few years ago at my parent's house. They must have saved it when they tore the old barn down.
Glass is a super-cooled fluid.
I grew up in a farmhouse from the 1860s.
Original windows. Some had dime-sized holes at the top.
I love this channel.
I started using AGM about ten years ago. I replaced mine a few years ago. 230,000 miles. In Arizona we'll worth what was to me at the time ~$200
On the farm, we were on a party line and our old Monarch hand cranker rang two longs two shorts (rings) when the call was ours. Girtie Fischer was the solitary phone operator in town for many, many years until 1966.
P.S. Still have our Monarch crank wall phone and have collected several 60, 70, 80 year old phones.
I still have my roatery phone. But I just recently disconnected it and now just use my cell for everything, including watching you. Funny, I can remember the phone numbers from the 1970s, but I can't remember anyone's cell numbers..
Fun fact the roatery phone worked during a black out, unlike the push-button phones of the day.😀👍🏻🇺🇲
Joe same with me! I still don’t know my GF’s number! 🫣😂👍
Absolutely a great day in America, Scout! And the far away future looks bright as well! I have an old phone similar to yours. Mine is black but has the plug in line. My Father-in-law was a career Ma Bell employee. He saved one of the old two-piece phones to make a lamp out of (It is the kind Sheriff Taylor used on the old Andy Griffith show). He never got around to it so now I have it. It is amazing how heavy those phones were. Great show as usual. God Bless America! ❤
Enjoyable video, Growing up we had three rotary phones, one in the Livingroom, one in the bedroom and a wall mounted one in the kitchen with cord that was like 20ft long 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I worked two summers doing maintenance at the Silvermine Tavern. Every Saturday I would have to drain a gallon or two from each boiler and then check the sight glass to make sure it refilled to the correct level. The old coffee urns also had sight glasses for the water jackets. About once a year it seemed someone would forget to check and they would spring a leak in one of the urns and it would have to be repaired. I think they switched to the kind that lets you make a couple of carafes at once because iit was too hard to find someone willing to work on the old ones.
Ha ha I remember rotary phones. In the UK the emergency services are on 999. The longest number to dial in an emergency 😂
No way! 😂😂😂👍
You took me down memory lane with that phone John.
I’ve had a hankering to replace my cordless DECT home phones with one of them for ages. I think I’m gonna do it!
Funny story about the old phones. My friend Paul used to make long phone calls to his girlfriend, so his mum got a phone lock, to keep the bill down.
However, I knew a hack to circumvent the lock.
Did you know that if you tapped the disconnect tabs at top of the phone quickly, it was the same as using the number wheel? E.g. if you wanted to dial 123, you tap the top buttons once, wait a second, then tap them twice quickly, wait a second then tap 3 times quickly. If you did that for all numbers, you could make a phone call.
Cheers
Yes! It was tricky at first because you had to have your timing spot on! 😃👍
@ 100% I remember it might take a dozen attempts to get the timing right, to make the call. Timing was everything!!!
I have one of those old phones. I bought it at a hamfest to show to the grandkids who thought it was very cool. I don't use it but it does work. I need to clean mine up like yours - good tips!
I always appreciate the part of your video where you show the flag waving
😃👍🇺🇸
I do too, it’s a beautiful flag ( none American by the way )
@peterw2845 glad you liked it
I remember the rotary dial phone from my childhood. It was a great phone but the touchtone phones that eventually came out were really neat. The phone looks very good and it was fascinating seeing the insides of one. The glass thickness on the oil burner furnace was interesting and I did not know the glass thinned out the longer it was used. This was a great tutorial! Thanks for sharing it.
John- We were the last to get a touch tone phone- Finally when we got it I thought it was the coolest thing ever. 😂👍
@@ScoutCrafter They were great. We were so blessed to be born in that time.
What a great show and a nice old phone. I'd love to replace all my cordless phones (that fall over if you look at them too hard) with sturdy equipment like that. Guess I'm old fashion anyway, still having a land line. And yes, it's a great day to be an American!
I didn't know that about the glass, but I do know that after so many years of service windows in public buildings are turned upside down because the glass gets thinner at the top and thicker at the bottom. If it's not rotated within a certain amount of time, it will become brittle a break.
It would be an interesting ASMR experiment to see how many young people would know what the sound of dialing phone is.
I was always told that and then relatively recently I was told it’s a bunch of old phooey, so I just don’t know. It always sounded logical to me as glass is a fluid
Just a quick note, have you tried "brasso" metal Polish on the handset, I've used it on an old bakelite phone (1950's) in England, and it works a treat. I would do a test area first.. Cheers, I used to be a telephone engineer in Britain.
Simon- Thanks so much for that! I never even considered Brasso and have used it for years but never on Bakelite! Much appreciated my friend! 😃👍
I am afraid that old rotary phone brings back memories. I remember trying to make a call, if you know what I mean, and chickening out on that last number. Phone turned out great!
Yeah, I called her when you chickened out and we went to the Prom
That phone brought back memories, we had both a wall phone and a desk phone like you cleaned up, I was happy when the touch tone phones came out, a lot faster to dial!!
When i was serving my apprenticeship, the company had its own exchange, it was i think based on the Stowger system. Invented by an american called Almon B Stowger, from Kansas. Ours was a good bit more modern but the principal was the same. The noise was incredible. It took up all the space in a big room, that was extremely hot. Replaced by a silent box 3ft X 4ft. I can remember the clatter of the selectors to this day. Great video.
Happy Birthday on 11/10 Marine! 249 and still the best.
Semper Fi! 😃👍🇺🇸
Hey Señor Juan, Here in México, even in the nineties rhe only phone company (TELMEX) only offer its service with those wheel dial phones, even on the streets. My family had two phones they were green or the other color was brown. It was a nice feeli g to use those phones, I do not know what happened to the ones we had at home. Saludos señor American.
There was a rotary dial phone on our basement wall when we moved into our house. A few years ago my 6 year old grandson was visiting. He has his own smart phone and pretty much does everything. When I showed him the wall phone, he kept putting his finger in and pushing the dial. Didn't know you had to put your finger in and rotate the dial.
I remember the rotary dial phones well......and I also remember how ecstatic I was when I was finally able to get the new push button number phone. It was 1980. At the end of 1979 I had taken the contractors license exam, and after a certain amount of days passed you could call the Contractors License Board to see if you passed, or you could wait another month or 3 for a letter. I must have dialed that number on the rotary 500 times before I ever got through and was thoroughly DONE with rotary phones at that point! BTW, yes I did pass, still a licensed contractor 44 years later. Great video as always John. Didn't know about the boiler sight glass, but then not many in California have now, or ever did have a boiler. What about the gland nut? Did the service man have one?
I too was excited with our new touch tone phone! It was more expensive too! No he didn’t have a gland nut. 😂👍
Great show John! I miss those old phones
Thanks John, a funny thing with car batteries, in the early days when batteries were less reliable they had meters that displayed the performance of the battery, nowadays we only know when it stops working ! My parents had a dial phone until the provider stopped supporting them, why pay to replace soemthign that worked, in the early days it operated on a party line and my sister used to answer and regardless of whom, if it was a. man she would say Daddy as my Dad was often away at sea. My Dad brought an old dial phone home for me from work so I could dis-assemble It, so I know the innards very well, I spent years taking things apart before I learned how to put them back together again !
Great phone, and well done on the cleanup! I'd flip the center to show the original phone number, personally. Miss those old phones.
Another good one John…I had to save the fan club picture, it was too funny and probably close to true. The phone bit brought back so many memories since we shared a phone with my mom’s Aunt’s sister who was our landlady. The phone was two floors down but fortunately we didn’t get too many calls….🤣…Also noticed how huge your burner is….but so amazing how stuff from the old days lasted so much longer…thank you again!
Have you seen the videos where they place an old phone like that in front of teenagers today and tell them to work out what it is and what it does?
It’s hilarious.
Yes! Also the analog clock! I can certainly understand why they wouldn’t know how to navigate such antiques, heck I can’t drive a model T Ford! 😂👍
When I was young me and my dad visited a telephone exchange open day, and in the room where all the action was were racks and racks of from what I can remember were blocks of glass metal plates with a selector running up and down corresponding to people dialing numbers - each little “machine” for every separate phone in town. And another interesting idea I learned ( I don’t know about outside the uk ) but the ring was designed in such a way that you can’t ignore it - and it becomes annoying if you do
Ahhh, ASMR shop sounds… my angle grinder with a flap wheel, my compressor trying to keep up, my band saw struggling to make its way through tool steel, and in the summer my enormous shop fan pulling air out after using strong solvents…. So restful! 😂
I had a tan phone sitting on my desk in the Navy for years and that thing wouldn't ring for months at a time. I was sitting there one day and the thing rang. I remember staring at it thinking this is bad news. I picked it up and it was my step mother calling me to tell me my grandmother had died. I went home and was a pall bearer in my dress blues but I asked her, how'd you get that number and she got it from the red cross who had called the base and they looked it up by name. That was the good Ole days for sure.
Nice show, interesting about the site glass, never knew that.
I still have a land line as a backup to my cell phone, nice thing about the phone system back then is they still worked when the power went out.
Yup... phones were powered all the way back at the telco central office by a huge -48 VDC battery bank... often the size of two 1973 Mustang Mach 1 cars stacked on top of each other 😀
Remember the chrome metal handset covers you peeled the sticky tape off and stuck it on the handset?
FANCY !
Hi John, looking at the phone just bring me old memories but the picture of your subscribers is funny 👍🤣🤣🤣🤣
I remember those phones. All pay phones were somewhat the same. As a kid in High School I used to unscrew the ear piece and touch the wire to ground and that would give you the dial tone bypassing the need to insert the money in the phone. I then could take the dime and by a chocolate bar.
John i grew up with rotary phones and you just never see one fail! I remember my grandparents had party lines where they lived. I remember my grandma telling me not to answer her phone as it wasn't for her . 😮
Great Day, indeed!!! God Bless America!!! Scoutcrafter, thank you so much for the information, entertainment and diversion your videos have provided me, especially over the past few years. You beez de man!
I take my bike battery out every winter and keep it under the stairs. And all the tool batteries come up the house in a tote every evening. It makes them last.
Absolutely- Extreme temperatures really shorten battery life. 😃👍
Brings back a lot of memories John especially my sister yaking on that phone for hours 😂😂😂
Well done Scout. I just looked up College Point on maps and it looks like a nice spot. Those old rotary phones, we can’t use them anymore in Australia as the whole system was changed to VOIP some years ago. The most frustrating part of those was that some dick head decided that 000 was the best number to call emergency services. Can you imagine, someone is having a heart attack and you’re trying to dial 000. I bet they thought that was real funny.
Also, quite often after an American tv show had finished we would get a notice on the tv to dial 000 in an emergency and not 911.
Cheers mate, Stuart 🇦🇺
Stuart! That’s crazy! I can imagine needing help and waiting for the slow dial…. 🫣😂👍
Good show today. You know I love the old phones, but we don’t have any that are in use here. Just display models. I hate when one part turns color or something, but that could be because that was changed out by the phone company years ago. They would bring refurbished and even painted parts sometimes.
I did not now that about the sight glass. Good to know.
I also didn't know that about sight glass and my only phone is my cell phone but I sure remember the old rotary landline ones
The sight glass gets etched. It has to do with the PH of the water. I was a burner guy before I retired, but not a water treatment expert. The PH of a steam boiler should be around 9-10 if I recall. You can get PH strips at a drug store to check the PH. To low can cause corrosion and to high can cause foaming in the water and difficulty steaming.
That’s good to know! Thanks! 😃👍
I'm not sure that I miss the old phones, but I definitely miss how much simpler the times were when that's all we could use.
Great episode. God Bless America 🇺🇸
Hi Scout crafter I remember always trying to get out the part of the handset cord that would go in the opposite direction sometimes there would be all kinds of spots like that it would take a while to get them all out the next time you would use the phone there would be back never figured out what caused that. People would use those handsets as a weapon in the movies
18:51 that’s why old timers tap the glass - to gauge whether it is time to replace. Either it gives low-to-no response, a high response, or shatters on-the-spot. See some sight glass? Give it a tap. At first you won’t know what the sound means but over time you will develop this skill of gauging the thickness of glass based on a flick of the finger or rap of the nail
That’s so interesting! 😃👍
....and I learned something new today. Thanks!
I have a telephone that has a month and year inside: November 1944.
Bright prospects ahead!
Rotary phone! All you said plus usually the "telephone technician/installer" was a neighbor or family friend and always tested it before he left. He would also help with installing the color cord that Mom wanted to match the phone. Oh, and a long cord so she could talk and cook. Always tangled badly. lol Our first "fancy phone" was a lighted Princess Phone. Nice for night dialing your girlfriend under the cover. Our town used only 4 numbers to call locally. Long distance (maybe 25 miles away) cost extra per min. Telling my age. Thanks.
Here in the Arizona desert I get about 2 years for a car battery.
I heard that- I wonder why? Heat cooked? 😃👍
@@ScoutCrafter Yeah, the 115 to 120 degree summers just destroy batteries here..
Another fine post, I have a working candle stick telephone, Cheers !
I also have a black model 500 desk phone from 1953. Hard rubber handset, short straight cord and black metal dial ring. Still working in 2024.
TGIF! Funny the wife and I been watching a BBC series Midwives of something like thaf..anyways, just the other day, I asked did they not have black phone over there..lol.. everyone that shows up in a scene of the show is colored...so I was tickled to see yours black.. growing up i had no clue they had colored phones lol.. and I got in trouble a few time for taking it apart. Lol.. have a great weekend!
Scout crafter ,I was just joking about the baby wipes ! Boston wise guy 🇱🇷🇮🇪🦉 👍
No joke- People tell me they do work but I can’t see them working as good. 😃👍
Glass has always had a shelf life - many years ago I remember hearing that old window glass thins at the top area downwards.
I feel your happiness! 😂 I finally feel the same way. 👌🇺🇸🇵🇷
They must have made those pay phone handsets from the same material as football helmets. Just ask Al Pacino (or me)
So, I guess you didn’t have to sell a kidney!?
Thank God! 😃👍
Hi John, In 1961 my family moved across the state of Missouri. My parents ordered a phone and we were on a 10 party line, 9 other families. Each family had a series of long and short rings. Each time the phone would ring you had to listen to the rings to see if the call was yours. Each call would ring in all ten homes, night or day. This didn't work to well with three teenagers. My parents were on a list for a private line. When we got the private line we were sure happy. I actually retired from the original phone company. Was that a Western Electric phone? Enjoy all your videos.
I sadly never had the chance to use a rotery phone. I remember my grandmother having one in her old farm's hallway I think, though that might be one of those early button ones in the same shape style as the rotary ones. My girlfriend says her mom and dad had one she used though. I wish I could connect one to my mobile phone, so I could use one, beats calling with a tile and way more style!
Cell2Jack and you can connect a dial phone to a mobile.
@ I need to research it more. I found one option once, that was very expensive though
@@alexstools A channel called Heavy Metal Horizons has a video "Connect Any Landline Phone To Your Cell Phone! (even old rotary phones!)".........Shows how simple it is to set up and it's only about 40 Bucks.
I have those sight glasses on the boilers at work and they burst and blow out regularly so we change them every year. If you get a slight leak it just cascades from there as well
The phones you rented could take a beating. If it broke the phone company had to send out a phone man to fix the phone for free.
They were hard to break! 😃👍
They have a way of hooking old rotary phones up to a cell phone and you can actually use the rotary dial. It's a bluetooth connection so you don't have to run a wire to your cell.
Exchange was Twining 9 in Jackson Heights. But man, you’ve got a reversal in the coil of your handset wire - THE JOBS NOT DONE - those reverses and spiral twisting on the coils always made me crazy specially on the extra long wire on the kitchen wall mounted phone
I know!!! I was trying to get it out but having a major brain fart! I couldn’t get it out! 🫣😂👍
There’s a trick to it, impossible to explain, I’d have to make a UA-cam video to show you - but I can’t risk stepping on to that slippery slope!!!
I used to hate that sound the phone made i think it was when you didnt hang it up correctly . It sounded like an old woman screaming hi and low like a French police car . It even scared me when I was little .
I lived in Minnesota for decades...I know what you're talking about.
Grew up using the old rotary phones.
I remember a buddy of mine his Dad was really tight fisted and he would put a lock on the on the rotor plate to keep people from using the phone when he wasn't home and we would get round it by using the 2 little buttons the handset rests on to tap out the number we wanted to call.
The first phone we had that I remember as a kid wasn't even a plug in type it was hard wired into the wall by the phone company.
You should try calling the phone number from that phone and see who answers
Sleeping better than I have in four years--things are looking up! I would have bet anything steam didn't wear out glass. Also. Who else felt cheated SC didn't cut more rope???😢
Uhh….yeah!!! Who doesn’t know that steam wears glass down? 😏lol.John all you need now is a red rotor phone and you can call your boy for the next 4 years!!! Haha…have a great weekend! See ya Monday.
Thank you for great videoes
AGM is the way to go...
Hey John. I hated those rotary phones and having the finger slip on the high numbers. Thank goodness we now have phones that cost over $1000 dollars. 🙄 Did you happen to see my email about the bottle jacks from Ellis' email? I went there today and there was a boat load of tools and a bunch of large sized jacks. I know you don't collects tools anymore but who can resist.
It's called the "hook-switch" - the mechanism that senses the handset is lifted
Interesting show today. Why don’t you make a new gland nut for your boiler on your lathe? That seems like a good project for the show.
Inside threading is a real pain on my lathe. I heard there is an old plumbing supply store in Astoria that has every old plumbing part you could ever need. 😃👍
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