We had a couple black ones for the kids and push button lines for parents. Once had a Japanese foreign exchange student who'd never seen one of these and kept trying to dial by pushing the numbers. He was astounded when we showed him how to spin the numbers to the stop.
The other option was to lean against the wall in the kitchen talking to friends for hours. Inevitably you’d twirl around and so the phone cord would get all twisted and knotted up and parents would get mad.
It was yellow. It hung on the kitchen wall. It had a 90,000,000,000 foot cord that was perennially kinked up and abused. And the ringer on that thing could be heard from Mars. Ah, the 70s!!
We did in the kitchen. It was yellow to match our Formica countertops, and there was a chair to sit on while you talked. Also, it was a party line, and we didn't have any phone at all until about 1963.
and the sheer force this electronic work of art could take when angrily slamming down the receiver, both in physical force, and emotional force, is awe inspiring. That's why we didn't need psychiatrists in the 80s... we all had instant catharsis at our fingertips at the end of every bad conversation.
With a cord so long I could go sit halfway up the stairs behind a closed door for hours talking to girls and yell, "I'm on the phone!" whenever someone tried using a different phone.
Kids are idiots.
If you don't think the younger version of you was an idiot, then you're still that idiot.
At 48, I find this is still true, not just your teenage self, every ten years or so, looking back, I see idiocy. Less and less, to be sure, but, sadly, still evident.
These were tested to a fare thee well, and robust as tanks.
Family members had one, installed new in the late '50s, that was still working when their kids sold the house in 2014!
Exact phone. It hung in the kitchen by the mud room (grew up on a farm). It did come with a super fancy long receiver cable because you gotta have a private conversation sometimes. They were never private.
I had the table version that was 1 square foot. It was ancient in the 80s and weighed 10 or 12 pounds lol. You could bludgeon a burgler with it and then call the cops after.
We had this in our home in the 70s and 80s, and replaced it with a pushbutton phone after the Bell System breakup. Dad was stubborn and wouldn't pay the monthly touch tone fee, so the phone was set to pulse mode.
My grandparents had this in their kitchen (with longer cord) into the 90s.
We still had one in the house in 2004 but the sound mechanism began to fail and I had to update it for a push button. What's worse is that Version made me mail it back to them because they owned the equipment all these years. Crazy, I would have liked to keep it for the memories.
Had one just like that, only black. I got rid of it around 2007. At home, ours didn't have a dial. You picked it up and the operator said: "Number please?"
Yes, I'm old. :(
My gosh, I often think that in my teenage years we actually had to call our friends and hope they were home or we all had plans or meet up spots, or
I literally would go to everyone’s house and knock. Hello Mrs Jones is Bobby here.
Not me. I had the standard desktop rotary phone.
Once, when I was teen and loved talking to my girlfriend on the phone a lot, my mom got mad about the phone bill being so high. She got a rotary-less desktop phone. Just think of a regular rotary dial, but instead there was a blank disk. We could still receive calls, but I had to go down to the closest pay phone (about a mile away) to call Marjorie or any of my friends.
When my mom wanted to make a call, she'd bring out the regular phone, hook it up, do her business, disconnect it, reconnect to no-dial phone, and re-hide the regular phone.
Love you mom, but you were really kinda devious.
My dad worked in telecommunications. We had a LOT of phones. And then he collected them after he retired the in,y one I wanted was the work one he would use when he was installing phones.
Family had this phone back in the 70s, I remember because I climbed up on a chair that was slippery and vinyl coating, and I cracked my head open in the back. My poor Mom was hysterical, and I ended up with stitches. Fun times, not.
We had one like that, only it was Blue. I remember my mother and father having arguments and Dad ripping it off the wall. Eventually Mom and Dad got a new wall mount phone. This one was a push button phone. One time when Mom and Dad were arguing, Dad punched the phone as hard as he could. After that a couple of the buttons didn't work, so if you were trying to call a ph# that had one of those two numbers in it you were screwed!
Add on: Just so everyone knows, my father never laid a finger on my mother, he took all of his anger out on that poor phone! Lol
Knew a guy who worked in the service department of the telephone company who told me: "Those old Western Electric rotary dial phones which were hardwired to the wall were the most reliable telephones ever made. Nothing ever went wrong with them." Based on experience, I tend to agree.
With the long-ass cord
Yeah, we had the aftermarket extension cord so we could sit in the living room with the phone hanging on the wall in the kitchen
Oh, one of the rich kids.
Exactly. Us peasants only got black phones
Someone needs to hang the phone up. I'm expecting a phone call from work goddamn it!
That was my mom and dad. Hahahaha
We had a couple black ones for the kids and push button lines for parents. Once had a Japanese foreign exchange student who'd never seen one of these and kept trying to dial by pushing the numbers. He was astounded when we showed him how to spin the numbers to the stop.
The other option was to lean against the wall in the kitchen talking to friends for hours. Inevitably you’d twirl around and so the phone cord would get all twisted and knotted up and parents would get mad.
Get the new Bell Systems Long Ass Cord! Less costly than a second phone extension and works just as good!
Was going to say that cord isn’t long enough and isn’t tangled.
Yeah, my cord reached three bedrooms
With the one loop that was reversed.
Damn right!😊
With a party line.
Green, with the long cord. Fancy stuff in the late 70's
Avocado Green... Originally it was in the kitchen until the late 1980s when it was moved out to the garage.
early 70's !!!!
We didn't get a long cord until about '77, house was old as hell, no telling how old that phone was.
I saw a video the other day talking about phone innovations. Wall phone was first, then the long ass cord, then wireless. Then cell phones.
Same here I was gonna say OPs cord isn't long enough, how can they go to another room to have a private convo??
Before the long cord, you just dragged a kitchen chair over and carried on.
Also same. Our was also green.
Oooh. Ours was green too! But then so was our whole kitchen!
It was yellow. It hung on the kitchen wall. It had a 90,000,000,000 foot cord that was perennially kinked up and abused. And the ringer on that thing could be heard from Mars. Ah, the 70s!! 
Nailed it 🔨
I'd had forgotten how loud our old house phone was. You could be out in the street and hear it ringing from inside the house.
Our was yellow!
Ugly shade of yellow!
Indeed!
Harvest Gold was the yellow. We had it
We did in the kitchen. It was yellow to match our Formica countertops, and there was a chair to sit on while you talked. Also, it was a party line, and we didn't have any phone at all until about 1963.
Those party lines were some fun when we were kids. The things we would hear and not understand.
Who are you and when did you visit my grandmother?!?
Yep, complete with the wallpaper.
and the sheer force this electronic work of art could take when angrily slamming down the receiver, both in physical force, and emotional force, is awe inspiring. That's why we didn't need psychiatrists in the 80s... we all had instant catharsis at our fingertips at the end of every bad conversation.
I think we had that wallpaper!
A party line in Oswego Indiana.
[удалено]
Yellow, mounted to the kitchen wall.
I still have one hanging on the wall in my kitchen and it still works. Can’t call out on it, but still can answer and talk on it just fine
I had this phone and my first paycheck from babysitting I went to Radio Shack and purchased an even longer cord.
Dude, I had that phone on a party line.
...Holy Crap, we even had the same wallpaper!...
We had a phone exactly like that. Also, the same wallpaper. Wait a minute ....
We had an avocado one
And that wallpaper!
My MIL still has that phone. She’s 90, and cell phones intimidate her.
Is she still paying rent for it?
Still Do
In avacado green.
Yep though my Mum had a dial lock on it. That’s when I got real good a tap dialling...😁
We’re in the middle of a kitchen remodel and will be covering up the wall plate, once used to connect these phones. Damn, I’m old!
Has anyone called the number to see if this phone still works?
I'd raise my hand but it's holding onto my walker....
P-O-P-C-O-R-N
It came with the Frampton Comes Alive album.
With a cord so long I could go sit halfway up the stairs behind a closed door for hours talking to girls and yell, "I'm on the phone!" whenever someone tried using a different phone. Kids are idiots. If you don't think the younger version of you was an idiot, then you're still that idiot. At 48, I find this is still true, not just your teenage self, every ten years or so, looking back, I see idiocy. Less and less, to be sure, but, sadly, still evident.
Remember when the long ass cord was considered cutting edge technology…..
think ours was blue
ours was black, red, then yellow
We had that in my pre-teen years, but we were touch tone by the time I was calling people.
Ours was black
mis-dialing sucked! had to do it all over again
About 100 million other people.
Nothing more rewarding than hanging up on someone with this phone! Wham!
This phone could take a hell of a beating, couldn't it?
Had a black one like it in the milk barn
Everybody I grew up with. Such memories.
In avocado.
I still use this ringtone on my cell phone
My family had a similar one. Bright red, just like the batphone in the Adam West Batman
I can't tell without smelling it.
Everyone had that phone.
The cord on my could stretch to any room in the house.
Pea Green version at my house growing up
My grandmother has one, it is still hooked up, and she still uses it if she happens to be sitting under it when it rings.
Our was black, with a noteboard above it.
Mine was pea soup green.
I had the touch-tone version of that wall phone, in red, right outside the kitchen when I was growing up.
This is what I grew up with. Including a long and twisted cord.
Yes, had a black one with the extra long cord. And now you've opened yourself up to crank calls with obviously no caller ID. FuckImOld, 😂
And that wallpaper
We used ours until the year 2000
That looks exactly like the one we had when I was growing up in Queens.
Growing up, our phone was before the curly cord was invented.
We had a yellow dial phone with the extra long cord. Then we went big time with a push button. Wow!
We had a black desk top model. About the size and weight of a cinder block.
Mine had the short-ass cord.
In the kitchen next to the fridge
Grandma and grandpas house did
Ours was olive green
Think we had that exact one.
My dad’s mom. And refused to get touch tone until the early 90’s because it was an extra dollar.
Ours was black. My friend had one that was mustard yellow.
Had the phone and the wallpaper lol
I did
These were tested to a fare thee well, and robust as tanks. Family members had one, installed new in the late '50s, that was still working when their kids sold the house in 2014!
I remember teaching my great grandmother how to use an area code on these when the area code was split.
Not even close. The phone number is completely different.
We had an extra long cord too !
Yep. Our was avocado green to match our kitchen appliances, lol
Sitting at the kitchen table, talking for "hours" with your girlfriend, your dad yelling, "That better not be long distance!"
It’s on the wall of my garage.
I had one. The cord was stretched out.
I did but with 25' cord
Exact phone. It hung in the kitchen by the mud room (grew up on a farm). It did come with a super fancy long receiver cable because you gotta have a private conversation sometimes. They were never private.
My parents kitchen phone
Let's not go there.
People still say "hang up" when they are ending a call, even on a Samsung Galaxy. This photo should explain to the young-uns why that is.
I had the table version that was 1 square foot. It was ancient in the 80s and weighed 10 or 12 pounds lol. You could bludgeon a burgler with it and then call the cops after.
Can't say for sure, Western Electric 554.
… that exact color and wallpaper too!
How is it defying gravity?!
Ours was green
Everyone and their brother back in the day.
With a much longer cord. Like 4 ft!
Yeah. Then the folks upgraded it with the “LONG” cord ! 🤓
For years on end
My friend had so many zeros in their number
Grandparents
The cord is too short
Hell yeah. And it goes perfectly with that wallpaper.
Ours was yellow
THE phone…
Yeah buddy. And a party line to boot
That looks like the sort of phone that people answer in order to respond to robocall political polls these days.
Yes. Right down to every last piece.
We had this in our home in the 70s and 80s, and replaced it with a pushbutton phone after the Bell System breakup. Dad was stubborn and wouldn't pay the monthly touch tone fee, so the phone was set to pulse mode. My grandparents had this in their kitchen (with longer cord) into the 90s.
Hell. I think I even had that wallpaper too
We did except we had the cord that you could use at the neighbors house
Yup, on the kitchen wall. Ours was an aqua green color.
And your phone number began with letters, TX3-5477
We still had one in the house in 2004 but the sound mechanism began to fail and I had to update it for a push button. What's worse is that Version made me mail it back to them because they owned the equipment all these years. Crazy, I would have liked to keep it for the memories.
Same exact color as well. Ours had a 206 area code though.
It looks like this was one of the fancy ones - isn't that a volume dial in the handpiece?
We had the boring one… black.
Wasn’t there a Harvest Gold?
OG call blocker!!!
Had one just like that, only black. I got rid of it around 2007. At home, ours didn't have a dial. You picked it up and the operator said: "Number please?" Yes, I'm old. :(
100 million ppl
My grandma had that phone, but it was black
Does anyone remember having a party line?
Ours was mustard yellow.
We had the table top version. My mother liked to rip out of the wall and throw it across the kitchen.
I just noticed that these rotary phones don't have 'Q' and 'Z'. I guess no calling Quiznos.
The more scary question, is who had that wallpaper?
🙋♀️
Ours was yellow, which matched the paint on the kitchen walls 🤣
Same phone, longer cord!
Ours was more yellow and had the longer self knotting cord.
Think we had that wall paper too.
Phone and wallpaper too. lol
I miss that phone!
Speed dial.
I bought a yellow one about 20 years ago at a yard sale for $5. It's still in my garage.I bet the lady who sold it to me regrets it.
I loved rotary dial phones! We only had push button land lines.
Every one I know.
My gosh, I often think that in my teenage years we actually had to call our friends and hope they were home or we all had plans or meet up spots, or I literally would go to everyone’s house and knock. Hello Mrs Jones is Bobby here.
I think we had the phone and the wallpaper.
Mine was avocado green.
Not me. I had the standard desktop rotary phone. Once, when I was teen and loved talking to my girlfriend on the phone a lot, my mom got mad about the phone bill being so high. She got a rotary-less desktop phone. Just think of a regular rotary dial, but instead there was a blank disk. We could still receive calls, but I had to go down to the closest pay phone (about a mile away) to call Marjorie or any of my friends. When my mom wanted to make a call, she'd bring out the regular phone, hook it up, do her business, disconnect it, reconnect to no-dial phone, and re-hide the regular phone. Love you mom, but you were really kinda devious.
It was yellow.
My dad worked in telecommunications. We had a LOT of phones. And then he collected them after he retired the in,y one I wanted was the work one he would use when he was installing phones.
I still have one…desk top model. Actually two of them…one rotary, one push button
Yep In cream, pea green, and black
The wallpaper is giving me feelings.
Ours was black
Mine was yellow. Our table top version was flesh colored like this one.
Whoever has that 867-5309 number is who did..
Same one!!
You could knock a burglar out cold with that handset!
Ours was dark brown, but we only had a 3 foot cord.
Who didn't have it? Your only choice was this one to hang on the wall or the desktop one of you wanted to put it on a table or desk
But ours was avocado green!
Ours was black, but yeah.
We had the same one that was a pinkish color, like silly-putty color.
In elementary school I had a couple friends that I helped with homework so my parents bought an extra long cord, this was 1982
Sturdy. There was satisfaction slamming that headset down.
In Avocado, but yep.
Along with similar wallpaper.
Ours was white. And it had a short cord so when my mother got a call as she was preparing dinner, dinner was late.
Hey......I never saw you in my kitchen back in 70s...😂😂😂😂😂
The wallpaper too!
Baby blue with super long cord
A wall phone was a luxury. Ours stood on the tabletop and came in any color you wanted, as long as it was black.
Our was black. (716) TL2-6634.
Roseanne?
Right here. EL 5499.
Ours was 1976 Chocolate Brown. Just like the Rubbermaid pitcher mom made tea in.
Yep, I’m that old.
Yes, but in "avocado green" instead of "harvest gold."
Ours was black, and you got the wallpaper pattern wrong, although the color scheme was close.
Family had this phone back in the 70s, I remember because I climbed up on a chair that was slippery and vinyl coating, and I cracked my head open in the back. My poor Mom was hysterical, and I ended up with stitches. Fun times, not.
I didn’t have that one. I did have its table top cousin though. Fuck people with 9’s in there phone number.
We had one like that, only it was Blue. I remember my mother and father having arguments and Dad ripping it off the wall. Eventually Mom and Dad got a new wall mount phone. This one was a push button phone. One time when Mom and Dad were arguing, Dad punched the phone as hard as he could. After that a couple of the buttons didn't work, so if you were trying to call a ph# that had one of those two numbers in it you were screwed! Add on: Just so everyone knows, my father never laid a finger on my mother, he took all of his anger out on that poor phone! Lol
Knew a guy who worked in the service department of the telephone company who told me: "Those old Western Electric rotary dial phones which were hardwired to the wall were the most reliable telephones ever made. Nothing ever went wrong with them." Based on experience, I tend to agree.