Telephone Collecting: Seven Decades of Design/With Price Guide [Paperback]

Kate E. Dooner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1993

The styles of the telephones are often overlooked for their functionality. Everyone has one. But here, in text and over 250 color photographs, a history of the design of the telephone is presented from Art Deco years to novelty phones of the 1980s. Once the upright "candlestick" telephone was replaced by a desk set "cradle" telephone, its designs became diverse and important in a competitive industry. In this new book, the largest telephone companies are discussed, including Western Electric, Automatic Electric, Stromberg-Carlson, Kellogg, and North Electric. Major sections are devoted to European telephones and novelty phones. Memories will be awakened as you page through the book to see the phones you grew up with. Old telephones are appearing in antiques and collectors' shops throughout America, becoming one of the hottest new finds for collecting or just as accent pieces. This book will let you know what grandmother's phone is worth and so much more. A price guide is included.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Schiffer Pub Ltd (March 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887404898
• ISBN-13: 978-0887404894
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,716,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good, but not the discussion of design implied by the title, October 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Telephone Collecting: Seven Decades of Design/With Price Guide (Paperback)

Although the pictures are lovely, and this book helped me identify a few of my phones, it does not include much discussion of the evolution of telephone style/design. There are pictures of some phones that are not mentioned in the text at all, and phones mentioned but not illustrated. It is a decent beginner's book, but does not go into the detail I wanted.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars correction to other reader's review, January 26, 2007

By 

G. Sinner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Telephone Collecting: Seven Decades of Design/With Price Guide (Paperback)

There are two separate phone companies: "Northern Electric" phones were made in Canada and were part of the Bell System, while "North Electric Mfg Co" was an independent company located in Galion, Ohio. The book would correctly identify these two separate phone manufacturers.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, August 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Telephone Collecting: Seven Decades of Design/With Price Guide (Paperback)

This was my first telephone collecting book and it's very disappointing to me, although the pictures are pretty.

Firstly, it only covers phones from the 20's on up, thus leaving out the great old wood and candlestick phone eras almost entirely. There's also almost no history or chronology of the phone's invention or development, during this period, other than a reference to industrial design.

Secondly, it's laid out in an arbitrary way, with examples of phones and short little captions which are hard to link to their correct photo, and with not much sense of how one phone followed another in production history. Occasionally, when showing the more rare phones, it's helpful, but only because of the picture, not the written part.

Thirdly, the author states on one page that a phone was made by "North Electric", which astonished me, since the company, as most people who deal with phones would know, was called "Northern Electric". (I guess maybe she was more interested in West Electric phones.)To me, that's a bad mistake.

Fourthly, the price guide seems flimsy and quickly put together with wide price ranges.

The bottom line is, if you like factual, condensed, categorized, quick-reference type books, this is not for you. This is not your field guide to old phones, by any means.