Humorous Memes

[Dargo]

Btw, and even though it's kind'a hard to tell because of Lucy's black purse sitting behind it, but it does appear she's using one of these old style phones here, and this would've been during the 1950s of course...

[laffite]

Btw, and even though it's kind'a hard to tell because of Lucy's black purse sitting behind it, but it does appear she's using one of these old style phones here, and this would've been during the 1950s of course...

Lucy's phone is more stylistically advanced that Masha's phone IMO. The latter phone was apparently made in Russia, there are Russian characters on the phone, probably numerals. Comparatively, it looks like an older style, something vintage and nice, but older. Take another good look at it. Anyway, it's all good. If a collector were to see it at a garage sale or an antique store perhaps, he/she would snap it up in a trice. Even back then.

[Masha]

It is: Багта-50 manufactured in: 1955. They were in use well into the 1970s.

Are you referring to somewhere other than the U.S? I'm guessing yes. Is the first letter in your description from the Russian alphabet? Thanks.

It was made by: VEF in: Latvia when that country was an: SSR.

The name: Багта is: BAGTA in Latin letters. It is an acronym of: Bakelīta Automātiskais Galda Telefona Aparāts. That means simply: Bakelite Automatic Desk Telephone Apparatus.

The letters on the dial are simple letters similar in some ways to: 'ABC' being associated with the number: '2' on Western dials.

[Masha]

Ever listen in on your dad's phone conversations he had with the local Komissar?

(...or would that have gotten you in trouble?...and NOT with just your dad of course)

LOL

Eavesdropping was not an option. We did not have extension telephone.

The majority of its use was for the general manager of the hotel where my father worked to call at dawn wanting to know wth occurred on my father's shift. My father did use it on occasion to inform my mother that he would not be home because of a problem which would take many hours to put to bed.

We were not enamored of it because it was a herald of bad tidings.

[Dargo]

Ever listen in on your dad's phone conversations he had with the local Komissar?

(...or would that have gotten you in trouble?...and NOT with just your dad of course)

LOL

Eavesdropping was not an option. We did not have extension telephone.

The majority of its use was for the general manager of the hotel where my father worked to call at dawn wanting to know wth occurred on my father's shift. My father did use it on occasion to inform my mother that he would not be home because of a problem which would take many hours to put to bed.

We were not enamored of it because it was a herald of bad tidings.

Question here, Masha:

Did they have during your youth there in Ukraine what I remember in my youth in L.A. as being what we called a "party line"? This being a system in which in order to save on one's monthly phone bill, one would first have to pick up the receiver and listen for a second to become aware if some neighbor of yours who shared the same line was already using it. And so, you'd have to wait to use the phone until their conversation had been completed.

And so if there were ones like this in your old stomping grounds, was the phone in your household setup in this manner?

(...and if you're a fan of the old 'Alfred Hickcock Presents' TV series, you then might recall that this sort of thing is a major plot point in one of its episodes, and with a busybody eavesdropper getting her just desserts at the end of it)

[TikiSoo]

It is: Багта-50 manufactured in: 1955. They were in use well into the 1970s.

Thank you! Comparing the two really shows the difference between the elegant industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss' work and a "knock off"

[jimimac71]

About party lines: Just watch "Pillow Talk."
It was interesting how Doris Day and Rock Hudson didn't share the party line with others.
I lived way out of town in my youth.
We were on a party line because private lines were not an option.
I didn't have a phone number with 2 letters in the beginning but my mother did.
Mom's phone number started with Highgate.
That was still used in the 50s.
We were pranked in high school to dial ESQUIRE on the phone.
Our school had a single pay phone on campus.
On a rotary phone, no letter Q.
Remembering can be very refreshing!

[Masha]

Did they have during your youth there in Ukraine what I remember in my youth in L.A. as being what we called a "party line"? This being a system in which in order to save on one's monthly phone bill, one would first have to pick up the receiver and listen for a second to become aware if some neighbor of yours who shared the same line was already using it. And so, you'd have to wait to use the phone until their conversation had been completed.

And so if there were ones like this in your old stomping grounds, was the phone in your household setup in this manner?

(...and if you're a fan of the old 'Alfred Hickcock Presents' TV series, you then might recall that this sort of thing is a major plot point in one of its episodes, and with a busybody eavesdropper getting her just desserts at the end of it)

Our first telephone was a private line because it was installed so that my father could be reached at any hour. "Work-related" was a powerful conjuring for accessing privileges beyond a person's normal allotments.

I did have to share a telephone with seven others during my first term at University but that was due to all of us living in the same rooms.

[jimimac71]

I'm sure some are wanting to know how the automated time recording you could call on the phone worked:
Well, here you go:
https://clickamericana.com/topics/scien ... ytime-1957
(This article was released 4 days before old jimimac71 was born).
Thomas Kinkade grew up in Placerville, CA.
I also remember the phone company could issue customers a calling card.
You could be in a phone booth, for example, and place a long distance phone call, charging it to your home phone, using the calling card.
I know, some are asking, what is long distance? What is a phone booth? What is a home phone?
Not sure if it is still possible to call "collect." For that matter, "reverse the charges."
Okay, one more: "person to person."
Ah, the good old days, "when sex was dirty and the air was clean."

[TikiSoo]

We were on a party line because private lines were not an option.

On a rotary phone, no letter Q.

Haha, we had a party line, it's all my Mom could afford. I feel SO SORRY for the people we shared with for my teenage years! Teens talk about nothing for HOURS!

Never noticed no Q.
Since I live in our family home, my phone number is GR9-XXXX for "Granite". They were just random words in alphabetic order. There is no "granite" in our City.

[jimimac71]

We were on a party line because private lines were not an option.

On a rotary phone, no letter Q.

Haha, we had a party line, it's all my Mom could afford. I feel SO SORRY for the people we shared with for my teenage years! Teens talk about nothing for HOURS!

Never noticed no Q.
Since I live in our family home, my phone number is GR9-XXXX for "Granite". They were just random words in alphabetic order. There is no "granite" in our City.

On a rotary phone, the 1 doesn't have any letters, nor does the 0 for operator.
That leaves 8 numbers with 3 letters each. I just realized by looking at an Internet photo, a rotary phone doesn't have the letter Z either.
The GR in your phone number should represent the first and second digit in your phone number.
(Beachwood 4-5789) (234-5789)
It's early in my morning and my first coffee.
Whew!

[Dargo]

Little known fact to follow.

In order to reach Jenny by phone before they phased-out the old 2L-5N telephone exchange naming system, you would have been instructed to dial: UMber 7-5309.

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it though, does it.

(...yep, it's probably a good thing Tommy Tutone didn't come out with that song until 1981, huh)

[txfilmfan]

We were on a party line because private lines were not an option.

On a rotary phone, no letter Q.

Haha, we had a party line, it's all my Mom could afford. I feel SO SORRY for the people we shared with for my teenage years! Teens talk about nothing for HOURS!

Never noticed no Q.
Since I live in our family home, my phone number is GR9-XXXX for "Granite". They were just random words in alphabetic order. There is no "granite" in our City.

The letter(s) dialed from an exchange name was variable until the Bell System standardized on the so-called 2L-5N format (two letters, five numbers) across the country. Before that, some places you only dialed one letter, some you dialed two and in others you dialed 3 (with 5, 6 or 7 digit numbers total). The phone book would indicate what letters were dialed by using a bold, capital font. NYC started out with 3 letter exchange names in the 1920s.

The reason for standardizing was to prepare for the day when a customer could dial long distance directly rather than using an operator. The switching equipment needed a standardized phone number length to figure out the routing.

Once they started the standardization process, the Bell System had an approved list of exchange names like GRanite, or CApital (in my case, but the nearest capital city was 100 miles away). The original intent was to reflect the local community, especially in large cities. But they soon ran out of meaningful exchange names as demand grew. They came up with a list of generic exchange names, but they ran out of those as well, so they pushed the exchange names out of the picture altogether starting in the late 1950s and went with "all number" dialing. It was somewhat controversial in large cities like NYC and Chicago, where the exchange name was usually closely identified with its neighborhood. You saw the same sort of thing when area codes exploded, and people in NYC (particularly Manhattan) coveted the 212 area code for some reason instead of the newer ones.

There's an episode of All in the Family where Edith starts to dial a number, reciting the exchange and 5 digits as she dials. She hangs up mid-dial and says "No! We're supposed to dial all numbers now!" and starts to re-dial. Only then does she realize it's the same number regardless...

[Dargo]

FWIW here, I remember as small tyke first remembering our Lawndale California (a suburb of Los Angeles) home telephone number as being FRontier7-7553.

(...amazing the stuff that'll stick in your mind sometimes, ain't it)

[Dargo]

And now for a slight detour as we stroll down memory lane here...