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Re: History--customer service training film--party lines

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On Sat, 13 Feb 2016, Dave Garland wrote:

> On 2/13/2016 4:02 PM, Gerard Schildberger wrote:
>
>> I knew a guy that ran two (rural ND) party-line telephone, er..., party
>> lines.   Each line had around twenty phones.
>> 
>> The two lines were not connected, but they could be if they rang the
>> operator owner to do a cross-connect, after he rung the target customer
>> and the party-line customer picked up.
>> 
>> To get someone on your party line, you cranked (rang) the, er..., cranker,
>> each crank would cause ALL of the other phones to ring.  To get someone in
>> particular, you'd (say) crank:  short, short, long,  and that would 
>> indicate
>> that the  short-short-long  party was to pick up.   Of course, being rural
>> America, most everybody picked up (after a while) to listen in.  Both
>> systems weren't connected to town in any way (initially),  and each ran on
>> a single   "#6"  cell,  which he said lasted about two months.
>> 
>> As more and more people would listen in, the volume/loudness of the 
>> speakers
>> would diminish such that hardly anybody could hear each other,  and someone
>> would yell, "get the hell off the phone, you rubberneckers!",  or some such
>> language.  As the owner got richer, they upgraded to having two  "#6" 
>> cells
>> for each of the two telephone lines.   He (the owner) and his brother 
>> bought
>> and installed the telephone poles, bought the wire and crank phones, and
>> strung the wire.   A few years later, they connected to the central Ma
>> Bell office in the nearest town, about eight miles away.  They were bought
>> out by Ma Bell in 1947.   Ma Bell didn't want the old crank-only 
>> telephones,
>> so the owner stored them in his attic.  He once  (in the 1950's)  asked a
>> Ma Bell telephone repair man if the old crank phones were of any value, and
>> he said, well, they have a lot of copper in them;  break them apart for the
>> scrap metal  (which he did --- he got a handful of dollars for the copper
>> in the forty or so crank-phones).
>> 
>> When he found out from me (in the mid 1990's) of their worth, he was beside
>> himself when he found out how much money he threw out the window  (to break
>> up the wooden housing to get to the copper parts).
>> 
>
> I suspect most of us tossed/junked/cannibalized stuff 50 years ago that would 
> have been worth a nice sum today. But the trick is to know exactly which 
> stuff that is in advance, have a 50 year horizon to plan for (I certainly 
> don't), and have ample storage space to stash it in. I certainly destroyed a 
> large number of cathedral style radios (my compatriots generically called 
> them "Philco junk sets") for the handful of parts that might still be useful.
>
>
It's that very process of junking that raises the current prices.

If everything had been kept, then there'd probably be enough supply for 
demand, and hence the price would be low.  Indeed, some of the demand is 
likely due to rarity, an everyday item isn't as interesting for most 
people.

So there's that time of obsolescence, something new coming along so the 
"old" is no longer interesting, and "the old" gets junked rapidly.  The 
owners don't want it, and neither does anyone else.  There is a slight 
secondary market, the people who can't afford the new so they'll make do 
with the castoffs, but they are buying cheap what others don't want.

So the stuff gets tossed, "I don't need it, it's doesn't do the latest 
things, and nobody else wants it".

Then time passes, and there is nostalgia or whatever, and they want what 
they used to have, or want what they couldn't afford when they were young. 
SO what remains is in higher demand, and since the attrition happened, 
supply is more limited, and prices thus higher.

There will always be the collector who just collects, so they bought or 
scrounged when things were cheap, and never got rid of that stuff.  But 
those are a minority.  I remember about 1972, a former teacher offered me 
an Atwater Kent radio, because he was turning the cabinet into a liquor 
cabinet.  I had the insides of the radio for a while, but didn't keep it.
At the time, old radio collecting wsa a very fringe thing. Then later it 
became a much bigger thing.

Early home computers were generally collectible all along, because they 
never sold that many.  But once they became a more consumer thing, say 
1977, the numbers started going up.  Some Apple II's may carry a premium 
price, but there were so many of them that generally they don't.  Too many 
were sold (over a decent number of years) and lots were kept in the back 
of the closet, probably the new cost too high for someone to scrap until 
much later. It gets worse even later, since computers got fairly generic 
as things moved on, and sold terribly well.

   Michael

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History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-13 10:13 -0800
  Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2016-02-13 13:29 -0600
    Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2016-02-13 17:09 -0400
      Re: History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-13 14:23 -0800
      Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> - 2016-02-14 15:50 -0500
        Re: History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-14 17:27 -0800
          Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-02-15 09:45 +0000
    Re: History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-13 14:20 -0800
      Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Gerard Schildberger <gerard46@rrt.net> - 2016-02-13 14:33 -0800
  Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Gerard Schildberger <gerard46@rrt.net> - 2016-02-13 14:02 -0800
    Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Gerard Schildberger <gerard46@rrt.net> - 2016-02-13 14:28 -0800
      Re: History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-13 18:13 -0800
    Re: History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-13 14:29 -0800
      Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-02-14 00:53 +0000
    Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2016-02-13 19:03 -0600
      Re: History--customer service training film--party lines "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-02-13 21:30 -0500
      Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-02-13 21:40 -0500
        Re: History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-13 19:30 -0800
          Re: History--customer service training film--party lines JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2016-02-13 22:33 -0600
            Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-02-14 00:24 -0500
              Re: History--customer service training film--party lines JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2016-02-14 12:57 -0600
          Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-02-14 00:05 -0500
            Re: History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-13 21:21 -0800
              Re: History--customer service training film--party lines "hgww" <hgww@gmail.com> - 2016-02-14 17:30 +1100
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-02-14 02:33 -0500
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2016-02-14 13:00 -0600
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines "hgww" <hgww@gmail.com> - 2016-02-15 07:28 +1100
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-02-14 20:14 +0100
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2016-02-14 16:33 -0600
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-14 17:23 -0800
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines mausg@mail.com - 2016-02-15 10:45 +0000
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2016-02-15 12:48 +0000
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines "hgww" <hgww@gmail.com> - 2016-02-16 05:11 +1100
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-02-16 18:52 -0700
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2016-02-18 11:37 -0600
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-02-18 20:57 -0800
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-02-18 21:11 -0800
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-02-18 21:15 -0800
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2016-02-19 01:04 -0600
                Re: History--customer service training film--party lines "hgww" <hgww@gmail.com> - 2016-02-20 04:26 +1100
      Re: History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-13 18:39 -0800
        Re: History--customer service training film--party lines Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2016-02-13 22:15 -0600
        Re: History--customer service training film--party lines "Joe Morris" <j.c.morris@verizon.net> - 2016-02-14 07:32 -0500
          Re: History--customer service training film--party lines "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2016-02-14 07:13 -0600
          Re: History--customer service training film--party lines hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-14 17:21 -0800

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