31 thoughts on “I found the ultimate stumper! Okay, what is it, and the era it came out of? Now, again, be precise and correct…

  1. Rotory Telephone 1900 to now. I have one hanging on the kitchen wall. My nephew brings his friends over to use it.

    • That wasn’t my intent Elmo… I was making a snarky joke out of the meme. I wish they would come back, more satisfying to SLAM the receiver down on an idiot then pressing “off.”

      • Oh, no problem. I was just foolin’.

        I had my mother-in-law’s (RIP) old rotary phone in my shop right up until they wouldn’t work in the new system, whenever that was. That old phone was probably 50 years old and worked great, right up until the time you couldn’t use it anymore. It kind of cracks me up to think young people don’t even know what they are or how they work.

        The simple times really were the best.

        • kinda like the cell phone I just had to replace because they want 5G rays to embed your brain; not just the 3G rays. worked great until they slowly started shutting down services.

          • I finally was forced to buy a smart phone about 18 months ago when my carrier sent me a message that my 2G phone wasn’t going to work anymore. So I bouhgt a phone, switched carriers and saved $25/month with my new plan. The new phone was paid off in 10 months with the savings. I also canceled my VOIP, sorta landline, saving another $50/month.

          • I miss my Motorola StarTac. Best flip phone ever.
            I’d say it was the best phone ever but my Motorola bag phone had it beat.

  2. Can also be used as a bludgeon in case of attack.

    I have one that looks just like this.

  3. I have one of those right here on my desk next to my computer that I still use. I’ve had it since the mid 70s. It’s really funny watching some kid trying to use it. They stick their finger in the hole where the number is and push down. —ken

    • Yeah, but British phones have that damn annoying funny ring that use to drive me crazy! If the phone is gonna ring, RING, not trill….

      • No, those went ring-ring, pause, ring-ring, pause, etc etc. The one with the annoying trill was the 1970s trimphone. My friends’ was made even more annoying when their cockatiel learned to imitate it!

  4. The one at my grandmother’s place, which I grew up using when I was there, had the old steel dialing piece. As a little kid, that would hurt–the damned return spring was stout!

  5. When the MaBell breakup happened, I bought mine. I kept it on the wall because it would work in a power outage. Got the question from a six year old granddaughter “How do you make a call on this thing?” She knew it was a phone, but the dial was incomprehensible.
    Now, we don’t even have a landline anymore. I only kept that as long as I did because of the DSL internet.

  6. Took my children to see my aunt one day. She called the deli to get us sandwiches. My youngest, about five at the time exclaimed: “Daddy! Her phone doesn’t have any buttons!!!”

  7. And you could take them apart and fix everthing in them with a screwdriver… except they never needed fixing.

    • They were built to last, used the 60/40 dialing standard, and the bakelite they made them out of will last until a nuclear war. Or the heat death of the Universe. Whichever comes first.

      As noted above, the handset makes an excellent bludgeon!!

  8. I would love to have the one my grandmother had. Its older than the one above.

  9. That is one of those very rare, early model, left-handed telephones. See how the cords both attach on the left side?

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