Blackmage Posted November 14, 2016 Report Share Posted November 14, 2016 My mom manages a couple gas stations in the area, and I bothered her about a year ago to see if i could get a few of the old payphones. Finally during some recent landscaping at one of the stations they dug one out of the ground for me. Went and picked it up and here she be. Im going to try to clean it up as best i can, repaint the whole booth, try to get some new vinyl for the sides, LED lighting in the top. The phones themselves you can get brand new for like $300, but all i really need to do it polish the face, replace some stickers and paper inserts and it should be ready to go. Im going to try to reprogram it so that it works with a basic land line and put it in my office at work. Should be a fun conversation piece. So as i started taking things off I was hoping for a ton of change to come pouring out of the thing. But as i pulled out the tray, only a few bucks I fucked around with the top half of the phone for a good hour before I got it open and off. I need to get the top off so I could remove the phone from the booth itself to begin stripping it down. You had to use this key, along with a regular key to get it to pop open, except no where does it tell you this and finding the hole where this small T key goes is kinda hidden. Cant even find instructions online. Frustrating haha But once i got this to open up, I made a discovery! Theres a shit ton of change in here!!! This phone hasn't been active for maybe 5-10 years, but people still try pumping change into it and forcing it down the poor things throat. Now that the change is all pulled out, time to start taking the rest of the guts out. First is the coin mechanism that sizes up the change and drops it into the correct "Pay mechanism" below it. basically it tells what kind of coin you used, dime, nickel, quarter, and then gives you the proper amount of talk time. Then removed the motherboard from the left, and the pay mechanism from the bottom. All in all, not a bad haul from a free phone. This isn't something i'll have done in a few days, but hopefully I'll have it operational soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ttocs Posted November 14, 2016 Report Share Posted November 14, 2016 reprogram it for a landline? Its not like its an old rotary dial. Short the the coin op interfering I would not think it would be an issue. Funny enough I watched bill and teds excellent adventure last night and thought about getting an actual booth-booth for fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackmage Posted November 14, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2016 14 minutes ago, ttocs said: reprogram it for a landline? Its not like its an old rotary dial. Short the the coin op interfering I would not think it would be an issue. Funny enough I watched bill and teds excellent adventure last night and thought about getting an actual booth-booth for fun. No, you're right, its nothing like an old rotary dial, but it's also nothing like a basic phone. Most of them connect back to a central server basically to get their dial tone and number. Yes, you could hook up a regular line to it, but nothing will work. Its like a Nortel commercial phone, without it having the server, the phones don't work. You would either need your own server, like this one below on the right side of the picture, or connect back to whoever the service provider is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
95riosnake Posted November 14, 2016 Report Share Posted November 14, 2016 Haha I love it! Just imagine how satisfying it will be when you end an angry phone call and get to slam that receiver back in. Something tapping the screen on a smartphone just doesn't give you lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackmage Posted November 14, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2016 38 minutes ago, 95riosnake said: Haha I love it! Just imagine how satisfying it will be when you end an angry phone call and get to slam that receiver back in. Something tapping the screen on a smartphone just doesn't give you lol. hence this phone! I actually use it to test our analog fax lines. I guess i could slam this one down first and then tap my mobile phone screen? haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve-Oh Posted November 17, 2016 Report Share Posted November 17, 2016 This is amazing! Nice find Wilbur! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prokiller Posted December 7, 2016 Report Share Posted December 7, 2016 by my count $39.84. not a bad haul at all for free. should be pretty cool to put it in place once it's all setup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
