Calling All Collectors: Antique Telephones

Wedgwood solid pink Jasper push button telephone

My husband just got a new smartphone.  It’s nicer than my laptop.  And, as if that’s not bad enough, it is about 30 times more powerful than the brand-new computer I started college with 18 years ago.  We’ll not even talk about the phone I had 18 years ago.  It had a cord….

Phones have evolved in incredible ways!  (And they’ve done so quickly, getting smaller and smaller as they get faster and faster – we love to play “Date this episode of X-Files” based on the size of Mulder and Scully’s cell phones.)  I don’t believe we can fully comprehend how much they changed the world – how they caused the miles between farms and towns and cities to shrink.  Fortunately, this wasn’t lost on at least one collector, whose collection sold recently at Morphy Auctions, a Pennsylvania auction house. This circa 1925 Western Electric dial candlestick telephone was among the phones sold at that auction.

So many models!  Doughnuts, candlesticks, wall phones, payphones, cradle sets and more.  You might be surprised by the prices some models bring as well.  Obviously, the classic wall-mounted model or one from a company like Roycroft is unique enough and “antique” enough to generate some interest, but the classic Western Electric desk phones can actually bring some good money as well.  Some of the vintage desk phones are lots of fun!  I love the Wedgwood example pictured above (a very reasonable buy), but you could also have something Art Deco – or something Snoopy and Woodstock….   While all old phones aren’t valuable, of course, you might be surprised to find that examples that come up at auction often bring between $100-300, so if you’re nostalgic for a long conversation spent playing with the phone cord, you can probably find a nice, affordable example that will allow you to “reach out and touch someone”!

-Hollie Davis, Senior Editor, p4A.com

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