Whats it worth?

[charles]

I was cleaning out the house of a relative who recently passed away and found these three phones. because I already have a few vintage phones of my own I am trying to sell them but I don't know what they are worth. Can anyone help me? The white one with the cod is a newer Radio Shack phone with the bigger buttons for older people. the second white one was given out by AT@T and is missing the cord it also has a small chip on the upper right hand corner of the receiver. I am not sure of the manufacturer of the red phone but it does say ITT on the handle. All phones are fully operational and I was wondering what I should charge for all three if they were sold together.

 

[wayupnorth]

Both my mother and I worked for the"phone" company. I have alot of the same phones and to be honest, unless you have regular "phone" service, they are useless. BUT a rotary dial always works in a power outage, connected to a regular line and adapter, like mine, which I reported a power outage today and power back on in half an hour. They are not worth much unless they are very unique to show off. Those phones are practically indestructible.

 

[rp2813]

I agree.  The two white phones I would say are only worth a few bucks each.  The rotary phone maybe $10 or $15.

 

I've provided a link to the Classic Rotary Phones forum.  It's one of the better sites on this subject.

 

 

Classic Rotary Phones Forum - Index

Classic Rotary Phones Forum - Index

www.classicrotaryphones.com

 

[tomturbomatic]

What were the white ones called, "Slimline" or something like that. They were so modern in the 70s.

 

[charles]

Thank You

Thank You for all of your replies, the website link was a big help but sadly these phones are not the "Modern" ones from the 70s but only late 80s and early 90s remakes. Now that I know that the red phone can go for 15-20 dollars I am going to charge 25 dollars for the trio. Also I am sorry for my bad pictures but my camera was broken and I had to use the selfie mode on my computer.

 

[moparguy]

Trimlines

At least the Bell System version of the white phones were called 'Trimline'. And as I recall, they were available in very period rust orange and avocado colors that were not available on the other phones (standard and princess). Like the princess, the dial/touch tone pad lighted at night. In those days of renting phones, they were much more expensive than basic phones... I think the basic phone was as cheap as $.95/month and the trimlines were $4 or maybe even more per month in the early 1980s (rates would vary by company operating area).

 

[wayupnorth]

I have a Trimline in brown with rotary dial, wall trimline in orange with touch tone, green rotary dial desk model. All have a very loud bell so you know when a scam call is coming. Check the Caller ID, yup scam, hit answer, wait 2 seconds and they are disconnected. I have more of those wall phones and desk phones but they only will work on real phone lines. Not really perks from working at the phone company but what was being trashed I saved. Hyacinth called hers a Slimline.

 

[appliguy]

They will only work on real phone lines!

That is not necessarily true. I have Cox Digital Telephone and it supports my rotary dial phones all of which ring good and loud just like they are supposed to. PAT COFFEY

 

[wayupnorth]

They have to be plugged into a jack to work, regardless of what the service is.

 

[ea56]

Tim

You are correct that these corded phones need to be plugged into an active jack in order to work.

I have Comcast Voice and I have the telephone signal backfed into my prewired phone jacks. All my corded phones work just fine when they alre plugged into any of the jacks in our home. And since our Comcast Gateway has a battery backup, the few times that the power has gone out the corded phones plugged into the jacks still work, as long as there is still a cable signal. Comcast Voice is great! I will never go back to AT&T!

Eddie