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All About Rotary Phones
It used to be that every telephone sold in the world had a rotary dial that was spun in order to call friends and family. Today, however, rotary telephones are all but extinct as touch-tone dialing and cell phones have taken over. Still, the history of rotary phones is fascinating and they make great collectors' items for people all across the globe.
What Is a Rotary Phone?
- Classic Rotary Dial Telephones - University of Salford website on classic rotary telephones used in the United Kingdom
- Evolution of the Dial Telephone - brief timeline of the history of the rise and fall of rotary phones from a real estate IT consulting group
- Rotary Dial - an overview of the rotary telephone
- Rotary Dial Telephones - short piece on the aesthetics of rotary dial telephones
- Rotary News - brief information on rotary phones
- When Dials Were Round - New York times article on rotary phones
How Does a Rotary Phone Work?
- The Early Years of the Strowger System - an article on the development of the Strowger Switch, the basic component that made rotary dialing possible
- How Phones Work - basic introduction to telephone operation that includes information on rotary phones
- How Telephones Work - another site on the basics of telephone technology
- How to Use Your Dial Telephone - very old instructions for using some of the earliest rotary telephones
- Removing Rotary Dials - take the dial off that rotary phone to see how it works
- Rotary Dial Phone Schematic - schematic diagram for a rotary dial telephone
- Rotary Telephone Dial Structure - copy of a patent from the mid-1970s to improve the rotary telephone
Images of Rotary Phones
- Bill's Phones - distance and close-up photos of one man's extensive telephone collection
- Dutch Online Telephone Museum - image page of rotary phones from the Dutch Online Telephone Museum
- Life: Rotary Phones - several pages of images of rotary phones from Life magazine
- Telephone Art - all manner of pictures and drawings of telephones, including rotary models
- Telephone History Pages - scroll down to find links to images of telephones, including rotary phones
- The Telephone Story - poster depicting the history of the telephone, with images of rotary phones
- Wonderful World of Rotary Dials - some great images of old rotary telephone dials
Collectable and Antique Rotary Phones
- Antique and Vintage Telephones - many images from a collector of antique/vintage dial telephones
- Antique Telephone Collectors Association - association of collectors of antique phones, with links to collection pictures that include rotary phones and more
- Chicago Old Telephone Company - site that sells old phones, with images of antique phones in its inventory
- Interview With Collector Gary Goff - an interview with Gary Goff, a well-known antique phone collector
- Telephone Collectors International - homepage for an international organization of telephone collectors, including those who collect rotary phones
Miscellaneous Rotary Phone Information
- The Agony of a Rotary Phone - article on how the absence of rotary phones is symptomatic of our too-busy lifestyles
- Almon Brown Strowger - article about the inventor of the rotary telephone system
- Ericofon - site about the one-piece rotary dial telephone known as the Ericofon
- Houston Telephone Museum - lots of information on the history of telephones, with pictures of all kinds of old phones
- iPhone Rotary Dialer - some information on one of the most unique iPhone applications, the iPhone Rotary Dialer, from the application's inventor
- ITT Telephone Instrument Maintenance Model - instructions for conducting maintenance of old ITT rotary phones
- Lord, Lease Me a Rotary Phone! - one British author's reflections on the rotary phone
- Repairing and Rebuilding Old Phones - this site has a link at the top to a pdf of repairing and rebuilding old phones, including rotary models
- Rotary Cell Phone - how one person modified an old rotary phone into a rotary cell phone
- Rotary Phone Info - rotary phone collectors may find this page that links to deals on rotary phones helpful
- Rotary Phones Ring True for Few - article on how some refuse to give up their rotary telephones
- The Telephone - transcript of a PBS program on the history of the telephone
- Telephone Sheep - check out this album of a photographer who snapped pictures of sheep made out of rotary phones
- Trimline Phone History - history of the Trimline phone, which incorporated the rotary dial into the handset
- When Rotary Pay Phones Return - article on how New York City installed rotary pay phones in 1994 to thwart drug deals