Anybody need 40,000 antique telephones?
November 9, 2023 5:01 PM Subscribe
Wisconsin couple has tens of thousands of old phones — and nobody to buy them. From the Wisconsin State Journal, the story of Ron and Mary Klappen, who've been selling vintage phone and phone equipment since 1971. But their business may now be at the end of the line.
They should take them down to Highway 61, obviously (...boomer Bob Dylan reference) which
is REALLY CLOSE??
Seriously though, they are beautiful. But there are too many of them. We have an old dial
phone sitting on a bookshelf, and it weighs a lot.
You can run a phone line between two of them and use them as intercoms? The old "microphones"
in the handsets generate enough current to hear in another phone in the house, without
an external power supply, I read somewhere. Probably not too practical though.
posted by Vegiemon at 5:41 PM on November 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
is REALLY CLOSE??
Seriously though, they are beautiful. But there are too many of them. We have an old dial
phone sitting on a bookshelf, and it weighs a lot.
You can run a phone line between two of them and use them as intercoms? The old "microphones"
in the handsets generate enough current to hear in another phone in the house, without
an external power supply, I read somewhere. Probably not too practical though.
posted by Vegiemon at 5:41 PM on November 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
And a thousand telephones that don't ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said, "let me think for a minute, son
And he said, "yes, I believe it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61"
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:43 PM on November 9, 2023 [14 favorites]
I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
And a thousand telephones that don't ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said, "let me think for a minute, son
And he said, "yes, I believe it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61"
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:43 PM on November 9, 2023 [14 favorites]
Can you plug them into a USB dongle and use them for VOIP with a computer? Seems like there might be a minor hipster market for that. Wait. Do hipsters still exist?
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 5:49 PM on November 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 5:49 PM on November 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Galesville appears to be about 8 miles from Highway 61. Get those semis rolling!
posted by Vegiemon at 5:49 PM on November 9, 2023
posted by Vegiemon at 5:49 PM on November 9, 2023
I met a hipster once who had disassembled a flip phone and built it into an old push-bottom desk phone. It was cute, if impractical. As was the hipster, if I recall correctly.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:53 PM on November 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:53 PM on November 9, 2023 [7 favorites]
Yes, you absolutely can — I have a rotary phone in my office that's connected to my cell phone over Bluetooth. Well, it's occasionally connected. Because it turns out a loud bell ringing to announce spam every few hours is actually pretty annoying, and pre-caller ID telemarketing is not something I am especially nostalgic for.
posted by cacophony at 5:59 PM on November 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by cacophony at 5:59 PM on November 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
They don't make 'em like that anymore
posted by Fupped Duck at 6:18 PM on November 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Fupped Duck at 6:18 PM on November 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
A Polycom ATA will let you connect an analogue phone to a VOIP service. The place I work for sells them to customers who want to keep an old fax running with a new VOIP service. I bought one to hook up our otherwise perfectly functional cordless phones and a BeoCom 1401, but I've recently packed it away in favour of just programming our home number into Groundwire on my iPhone. I don't know how they do with rotary dialing.
posted by krisjohn at 6:22 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by krisjohn at 6:22 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
i hope that their business isn't totally gone to POTS
posted by MonsieurPEB at 6:30 PM on November 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by MonsieurPEB at 6:30 PM on November 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
I have a phone. No one calls it except telemarketers.
posted by richardmeyers1987 at 6:43 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by richardmeyers1987 at 6:43 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is relevant to my interests. Do they have a website? eBay or Etsy store?
posted by slkinsey at 6:52 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 6:52 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Technology moves fast, and most hardware depreciates quickly. The landline had maybe a 100 year run, and perhaps 50 years of ubiquity where most of humanity had access to one. But it really is a blink of an eye in human history. At some point in most of our lives, mobile phones will have been prevalent from more years than rotary phones ever were. I’m willing to bet that right now more humans have had access to cellphones than the number who ever had access to landlines.
I’m not sure what point I’m trying to make, but somehow this story is more poignant than a story about an 87 year old man with barns full of Zip drives, or barns full of Nomad MP3 players. Perhaps rotary phones managed to capture the world more than whatever followed (after all, the icon on my smartphone for “phone” is a stylized rotary receiver!) but at the end of the days, they’d all be stories of obsolete technology that the world moved on from.
posted by rh at 6:56 PM on November 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
I’m not sure what point I’m trying to make, but somehow this story is more poignant than a story about an 87 year old man with barns full of Zip drives, or barns full of Nomad MP3 players. Perhaps rotary phones managed to capture the world more than whatever followed (after all, the icon on my smartphone for “phone” is a stylized rotary receiver!) but at the end of the days, they’d all be stories of obsolete technology that the world moved on from.
posted by rh at 6:56 PM on November 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
Just in time for holiday shopping: phonecoinc.com
posted by rube goldberg at 6:58 PM on November 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by rube goldberg at 6:58 PM on November 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
The landline had maybe a 100 year run, and perhaps 50 years of ubiquity where most of humanity had access to one.
Was there ever a time where most people worldwide had access to a landline? I'm wondering because I can remember traveling in Africa in the 1990s and needing to go to the single phone center in a mid-sized town, where you paid to use a cubicle with a phone to make calls, like a precursor of an internet cafe. Smaller places wouldn't even have that, though there might be a phone at the health center or police station.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:09 PM on November 9, 2023 [9 favorites]
Was there ever a time where most people worldwide had access to a landline? I'm wondering because I can remember traveling in Africa in the 1990s and needing to go to the single phone center in a mid-sized town, where you paid to use a cubicle with a phone to make calls, like a precursor of an internet cafe. Smaller places wouldn't even have that, though there might be a phone at the health center or police station.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:09 PM on November 9, 2023 [9 favorites]
Do they have a website? eBay or Etsy store?
They probably prefer you call.
posted by plastic_animals at 7:37 PM on November 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
They probably prefer you call.
posted by plastic_animals at 7:37 PM on November 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
Yeah, (lots of) Africa kind of skipped landlines.
By going straight to mobile, many African nations will be able to skip the step of building extensive and expensive landline infrastructure.posted by krisjohn at 7:39 PM on November 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Just in time for holiday shopping: phonecoinc.com -- rube goldbergOh, that website brings me joy.
posted by krisjohn at 7:41 PM on November 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
We still have a landline, although I’m increasingly wondering why. It costs more for just the line, no long distance or any services, than my cell does with all the services, long distance, and data. Anyways, we still have two rotary phones hooked up, one upstairs and one downstairs. I keep them because they look cool, I like the ringing of a real bell, and unlike our cordless handsets they never go missing.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:13 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:13 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
No more landline but I keep the rotary phone from my parents' house bedside to promote bedroom security a la Goodnight Moon.
Also I hope it rings some night, and my mother's on the line; that's of course too much to ask for but I have seen Long Distance Call.
posted by Rash at 8:33 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Also I hope it rings some night, and my mother's on the line; that's of course too much to ask for but I have seen Long Distance Call.
posted by Rash at 8:33 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm sure they're loaded up with a lot of less-than-desirable inventory but...I sure didn't feel like I was buying something no one else wanted when I recently paid over $100 for a harvest gold Bakelite phone on eBay. Non-working! Just a piece of kitschy decor for a phone niche at my mom's place. And I lost two auctions before panic-buying for a shipping deadline.
posted by mullacc at 9:04 PM on November 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by mullacc at 9:04 PM on November 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
somehow this story is more poignant than a story about an 87 year old man with barns full of Zip drives, or barns full of Nomad MP3 players.
There was a great story a couple of years ago about an older man who still deals in floppy disks.
posted by smelendez at 9:07 PM on November 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
There was a great story a couple of years ago about an older man who still deals in floppy disks.
posted by smelendez at 9:07 PM on November 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Seems like there might be a minor hipster market for that. Wait. Do hipsters still exist?
Next topic: Anybody need 40,000 antique hipsters?
posted by fairmettle at 9:20 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Next topic: Anybody need 40,000 antique hipsters?
posted by fairmettle at 9:20 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
It’s the same challenges faced by others who deal in antiques like roll-top desks, sets of china, oil lamps, armoires and salt and pepper shakers.
Wait, what?
posted by pelvicsorcery at 9:20 PM on November 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
Wait, what?
posted by pelvicsorcery at 9:20 PM on November 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
The only place I can think of that would still use antique telephones are theaters who need them for some plays. Don't think that would be a booming business to sell to, though. (I note the theater I perform at has some kind of antique telephone setup in the hall just for novelty.)
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:14 PM on November 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:14 PM on November 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Just in time for holiday shopping: phonecoinc.com
This is an incredibly charming little website
posted by JDHarper at 1:41 AM on November 10, 2023
This is an incredibly charming little website
posted by JDHarper at 1:41 AM on November 10, 2023
I still have my beloved Sculptura phone. It’s sitting on a shelf, looking nice and retro. Had it since it was new. Still works. Western Electric, man. Made to last.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:50 AM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 2:50 AM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Telemarketing killed the landline phone, didn't it radio star?
Political pollsters might want this plethora of potential data points.
posted by nofundy at 4:18 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Political pollsters might want this plethora of potential data points.
posted by nofundy at 4:18 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Can you plug them into a USB dongle and use them for VOIP with a computer? Seems like there might be a minor hipster market for that.
You'd need a device that can source the 90V high current source for the bell. That is a hard ask from equipment.
The last time i saw EQ like that it was a 4 port unit that could act as a phone or drive a phone (FXS/FXO) and needed Java 1.4 to configure it. Like a Windows 7 or older box would have. (Windows 2000?) And I'm not sure it could drive a mechanical bell's current needs.
It wasn't a USB device - it connected to the ethernet as was about $1K in price new. It did work with US Robotics modems along with non-mechanical phones.
Not sure it would drive a fortress phone. And for some reason the search engines have not found some old head who's published how they made a fortress phone VOIPed.
posted by rough ashlar at 4:18 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
You'd need a device that can source the 90V high current source for the bell. That is a hard ask from equipment.
The last time i saw EQ like that it was a 4 port unit that could act as a phone or drive a phone (FXS/FXO) and needed Java 1.4 to configure it. Like a Windows 7 or older box would have. (Windows 2000?) And I'm not sure it could drive a mechanical bell's current needs.
It wasn't a USB device - it connected to the ethernet as was about $1K in price new. It did work with US Robotics modems along with non-mechanical phones.
Not sure it would drive a fortress phone. And for some reason the search engines have not found some old head who's published how they made a fortress phone VOIPed.
posted by rough ashlar at 4:18 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
They want over $100 for some late-20th C. phones. I would pay like $49 for one, but not double or triple that!
And I am not even clear why I want one: like, I guess I could make it a VOIP phone and call my parents? Or something? But I really would like a black wall phone with a rotary dial.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:24 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
And I am not even clear why I want one: like, I guess I could make it a VOIP phone and call my parents? Or something? But I really would like a black wall phone with a rotary dial.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:24 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
You can run a phone line between two of them and use them as intercoms? The old "microphones"
in the handsets generate enough current to hear in another phone in the house, without
an external power supply, I read somewhere. Probably not too practical though.
posted by Vegiemon at 8:41 PM on November 9 [3 favorites +] [!]
I've done this myself- you're right that phones can be used as intercoms, but land line phones use either carbon microphones or condenser mics and definitely require an external power source.
Here's a diagram I created years ago showing how to use two landline phones as an intercom. No idea why I made such an 'artsy' diagram at the time.
They won't ring, so if you want to use this as something other than a fun activity for kids, you'll also need to add extra wires, buzzers and switches to signal someone to pick up the other end as needed. 6V Lantern batteries might be hard to find nowadays, but you could use a single 12v rechargable pack as well. An old school phone draws no current when on hook, so batteries can last a long time so long as people remember to hang the phones up when done speaking.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 4:28 AM on November 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
in the handsets generate enough current to hear in another phone in the house, without
an external power supply, I read somewhere. Probably not too practical though.
posted by Vegiemon at 8:41 PM on November 9 [3 favorites +] [!]
I've done this myself- you're right that phones can be used as intercoms, but land line phones use either carbon microphones or condenser mics and definitely require an external power source.
Here's a diagram I created years ago showing how to use two landline phones as an intercom. No idea why I made such an 'artsy' diagram at the time.
They won't ring, so if you want to use this as something other than a fun activity for kids, you'll also need to add extra wires, buzzers and switches to signal someone to pick up the other end as needed. 6V Lantern batteries might be hard to find nowadays, but you could use a single 12v rechargable pack as well. An old school phone draws no current when on hook, so batteries can last a long time so long as people remember to hang the phones up when done speaking.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 4:28 AM on November 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
Telemarketing killed the landline phone, didn't it radio star?
We were pretty late hanging on to our landline, and relentless barrages of telemarketers were what finally killed it off.
posted by ovvl at 5:11 AM on November 10, 2023
We were pretty late hanging on to our landline, and relentless barrages of telemarketers were what finally killed it off.
posted by ovvl at 5:11 AM on November 10, 2023
A few years ago, back when Shepherd and I had a radio show on local community/campus radio station, we interviewed these guys. I bet they would have an interest in those phones!
posted by Kitteh at 5:16 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 5:16 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
A gentle tone will let you know someone is trying to reach you.
posted by dr_dank at 5:17 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by dr_dank at 5:17 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
In the early 2000s I did brisk business selling the venerable Trimline phones, bought at rummage sales for a dollar and sold online for $50-$100. They came in a bunch of colors and had a very distinctive ring. But, phone sales have seriously dropped off, I don't know when the last time I sold one was. We have a couple deep red desk phones that used to also be strong sellers but not any more.
I did have a solid 20lb black bakelite phone from the 1920s in my mall booth that got shoplifted. Like, someone picked it up and walked out the antique mall with nobody noticing. I'd be mad if I wasn't so impressed by their audacity.
posted by AzraelBrown at 5:22 AM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
I did have a solid 20lb black bakelite phone from the 1920s in my mall booth that got shoplifted. Like, someone picked it up and walked out the antique mall with nobody noticing. I'd be mad if I wasn't so impressed by their audacity.
posted by AzraelBrown at 5:22 AM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
You'd need a device that can source the 90V high current source for the bell. That is a hard ask from equipment.
Pretty much any standalone ATA will ring a bell. What they won't do is ring five of them like the telco can. Even the cheap USB adapters will generate the 90V ring signal, they just won't do more than 0.5REN or so, limiting you to phones with electronic "ringers".
The $50 brand new Grandstream HT801 is rated for 2 REN, so it should be capable of driving a couple of 500 or 2500 sets, though it only has one port. Analog telephony being what it is, there's nothing stopping you from plugging that port into your house wiring and driving a couple of different phones on different wall jacks if you wanted, though.
posted by wierdo at 5:31 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Pretty much any standalone ATA will ring a bell. What they won't do is ring five of them like the telco can. Even the cheap USB adapters will generate the 90V ring signal, they just won't do more than 0.5REN or so, limiting you to phones with electronic "ringers".
The $50 brand new Grandstream HT801 is rated for 2 REN, so it should be capable of driving a couple of 500 or 2500 sets, though it only has one port. Analog telephony being what it is, there's nothing stopping you from plugging that port into your house wiring and driving a couple of different phones on different wall jacks if you wanted, though.
posted by wierdo at 5:31 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
If I didn't already have three vintage phones, I'd call them.
posted by freakazoid at 6:29 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by freakazoid at 6:29 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
I’d love one. They make great door stops.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:43 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:43 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
From a 2007 article: In a small display near the entrance are photos of some of the recent movies that feature phones bought or rented from Phoneco: The Good German, a drama starring Clooney set in post World War II Germany, The Good Shepherd, The Black Dahlia, All the King's Men, Cinderella Man, American Gangster and The Bourne Ultimatum. There are also numerous TV shows such as CSI, Saturday Night Live and All My Children. The first movie featuring phones from Phoneco was the 1988 film about the 1919 Black Sox baseball scandal, Eight Men Out. Producers needed candlestick phones on scissor brackets and a couple of pay phones. [...]
Their company has gone from checks and money orders with packages dropped off at the post office to Internet sales, credit cards, PayPal and daily UPS pickups. Knappen, 65, and her husband, 71, now have so many phones they're no longer buying. In fact, they want to sell the company so they can retire. The asking price, which is listed on page 20 of Phoneco's catalog, is $850,000.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:54 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Their company has gone from checks and money orders with packages dropped off at the post office to Internet sales, credit cards, PayPal and daily UPS pickups. Knappen, 65, and her husband, 71, now have so many phones they're no longer buying. In fact, they want to sell the company so they can retire. The asking price, which is listed on page 20 of Phoneco's catalog, is $850,000.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:54 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have an ATA (found at Value Village for $5), a Western Telecom Princess phone I refurbished (its ring is nice) and even wrangled some numbers with commercial provider voip.ms: but I'm sure the few minutes of joy about having a working landline again will be shattered by the first spam call seconds later. So I haven't bothered to hook them all up yet.
Lines through VOIP providers are cheap, but the UX and jargon is a steep climb. It also doesn't help that they recommend hardware that was EOL'd sometime in the late 1990s.
posted by scruss at 10:01 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
Lines through VOIP providers are cheap, but the UX and jargon is a steep climb. It also doesn't help that they recommend hardware that was EOL'd sometime in the late 1990s.
posted by scruss at 10:01 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
And i thought I had it bad. My husband had a brief preoccupation with running a model VoIP telco, which extended to purchasing local phone numbers and buying all kinds of switching equipment and 4 desktop phones. He set up some sort of voice mail service and a small directory tree.
It was all very impressive and fascinating, but now there are 3 desktop VoIP phones in our garage sale pile, and I don't know my local phone number to give out, nor would I know how to answer or dial out from if even if i knew what it was.
Anyone want to buy some nice office phones or switching equipment, by the way?
posted by rubah at 12:04 PM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
It was all very impressive and fascinating, but now there are 3 desktop VoIP phones in our garage sale pile, and I don't know my local phone number to give out, nor would I know how to answer or dial out from if even if i knew what it was.
Anyone want to buy some nice office phones or switching equipment, by the way?
posted by rubah at 12:04 PM on November 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think is representative of a much larger trend with asset hoarding and boomers. This couple could afford to 'operate' their business with prices completely out of line with the demand for their goods. This isn't a new story, this business was in the media back in 2019, and they would have taken $250,000 then for the business.
Of course their kids don't want it, it isn't an asset but a massive hassle. They recently sold their 41,000-square-foot building, but it is 4 stories and stuffed with equipment. Where is all of that going to go? The story from 2019 notes that they haven't taken a salary for a dozen years and the sales then barely covered the operating costs.
This operation currently has materials stored in
Yet the price of an essentially non functional phone is several times that of prop phones or retro phones from Amazon. That makes their target market folks who will pay a premium for a vintage object. The fundamental problem is this market is shrinking rapidly. If this biz was mine or my 'inheritance' I would be absolutely ruthless in disposing of it. And quickly.
So much of what boomers have held dearly is going to rapidly depreciate, especially their oceans of memorabilia. Many of their wasteful ridiculousness has allready started this process: like golf. That fancy 'luxury' watch dad prizes so much and totally bought the advert that he's going to hand it down over the generations? Ye old tymeewatches started dropping in price last year and an index of them is down 30%. I'd wager that all those smart gen X's flush with crypto had a big role in just how dumb this market is.
And all those old cars? That market is very wobbly and at best flat. And that's the top of the market. Predicting the housing market is a fools errand, but at some point the irrational exuberance will wear out and the 'silver tsunami' will begin.
Just like the subject of the article I know many folks in that demographic holding on to something precious that they value: the family cabin. These cabins are a huge hassle to maintain, as all their children have moved away to work and simply don't have the time to even enjoy them. For a sizable number of my peers any transfer of ownership will ensure the property simply becomes a financial burden to offload.
The last crash was triggered by only a small fraction of houses becoming a distressed asset, I don't see any way huge chunks of the housing market doesn't get vaporized. A clapped out 70's special doesn't magically transform into a quaint Pinterest cabin just cause it happens to be next to some water. And there's over 7 millions second houses out there.
posted by zenon at 3:35 PM on November 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
Of course their kids don't want it, it isn't an asset but a massive hassle. They recently sold their 41,000-square-foot building, but it is 4 stories and stuffed with equipment. Where is all of that going to go? The story from 2019 notes that they haven't taken a salary for a dozen years and the sales then barely covered the operating costs.
This operation currently has materials stored in
- 40 thousand foot building that needs to be emptied soon
- a granary
- barn and its silo
- pole shed
- former chicken barn
- 80-foot-long, 60-foot-wide steel shed
- 33 trailers
- plus 40 'vintage' vehicles
Yet the price of an essentially non functional phone is several times that of prop phones or retro phones from Amazon. That makes their target market folks who will pay a premium for a vintage object. The fundamental problem is this market is shrinking rapidly. If this biz was mine or my 'inheritance' I would be absolutely ruthless in disposing of it. And quickly.
So much of what boomers have held dearly is going to rapidly depreciate, especially their oceans of memorabilia. Many of their wasteful ridiculousness has allready started this process: like golf. That fancy 'luxury' watch dad prizes so much and totally bought the advert that he's going to hand it down over the generations? Ye old tymeewatches started dropping in price last year and an index of them is down 30%. I'd wager that all those smart gen X's flush with crypto had a big role in just how dumb this market is.
And all those old cars? That market is very wobbly and at best flat. And that's the top of the market. Predicting the housing market is a fools errand, but at some point the irrational exuberance will wear out and the 'silver tsunami' will begin.
Just like the subject of the article I know many folks in that demographic holding on to something precious that they value: the family cabin. These cabins are a huge hassle to maintain, as all their children have moved away to work and simply don't have the time to even enjoy them. For a sizable number of my peers any transfer of ownership will ensure the property simply becomes a financial burden to offload.
The last crash was triggered by only a small fraction of houses becoming a distressed asset, I don't see any way huge chunks of the housing market doesn't get vaporized. A clapped out 70's special doesn't magically transform into a quaint Pinterest cabin just cause it happens to be next to some water. And there's over 7 millions second houses out there.
posted by zenon at 3:35 PM on November 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
We actually use old phone handsets for two pieces of electrical test equipment at work.
posted by drezdn at 4:06 PM on November 10, 2023
posted by drezdn at 4:06 PM on November 10, 2023
Oh man. Your post hits hard, zenon. We have older relatives with massive collections of stuff and piles of family heirlooms that no one in younger generations are interested in anymore. It all cost them a lot of money and time to amass, or has great sentimental value to them. We are all dreading the work of clearing their houses when the time comes. The beloved family cabin that after 70 years is an enormous money and time sink and too much work for just me and my almost 80-year old dad to keep up. My own collection of retro computers that I know my kids will just dump at the recyclers some day.
I had the same thought about those phones. If they are really interested in selling them and the market has crashed, they really need to drastically drop those prices or they will never move them. Landlines are quickly dying and so is their potential market.
posted by fimbulvetr at 6:48 PM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I had the same thought about those phones. If they are really interested in selling them and the market has crashed, they really need to drastically drop those prices or they will never move them. Landlines are quickly dying and so is their potential market.
posted by fimbulvetr at 6:48 PM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have three dial phones here that I found when clearing out the house of an elderly relative, a couple of standard BT ones and a trim phone (remember them?). If anyone in the UK is interested in them, get in touch.
(She left the *house* to the local cat rescue and the *contents* to my sister and me. I have never seen so much valueless junk. But that's another story)
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 12:30 AM on November 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
(She left the *house* to the local cat rescue and the *contents* to my sister and me. I have never seen so much valueless junk. But that's another story)
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 12:30 AM on November 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
^if there are no takers here, 43rdAnd9th, maybe a prop house would be interested.
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:09 AM on November 11, 2023
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:09 AM on November 11, 2023
They probably could charge higher prices than random eBay sellers because they fixed up the phones, including getting them running.
But now most people buying a vintage phone are just going to want it for decorative purposes or to rip the guts out and put some other electronics in there for a project, so the value they add has fallen.
posted by smelendez at 11:52 AM on November 12, 2023
But now most people buying a vintage phone are just going to want it for decorative purposes or to rip the guts out and put some other electronics in there for a project, so the value they add has fallen.
posted by smelendez at 11:52 AM on November 12, 2023
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I have my old home rotary phone, and a wall rotary that came with our house. They are so fun…
As a game collector with thousands of games, I respect their vision.
posted by Windopaene at 5:22 PM on November 9, 2023 [2 favorites]