Here is a cool gift idea for the payphone enthusiast in your life, or for anyone with an interest in telephone nostalgia. I picked this book up a couple of years ago and check in on it once in a while if only to remind myself how interesting and even exciting the world of payphonery used to be.
Payphone History, by Ron Knappen (of Phoneco Inc.), is a 480 page volume of payphones, payphones, and more payphones. This beefy tome is not so much a straight chronological “history” of public pay stations as an omnibus — an anthology of information and content collected from hundreds of sources and contributors. This volume contains lots and lots and lots of history, including numerous excellent essays on the evolution and development of the once omnipresent payphone.
The level of detail in this unique book ranges from anecdotal to painstaking. In these pages one finds photos, illustrations, and descriptions of virtually every type of pay station ever produced, from the earliest Gray pay stations to the 3-slotter to rotary dial to touch-tone, with accompanying images showing all styles of enclosures, phone booths, boothettes, and payphone signage. This book mostly focused on United States payphones, but lots of other countries are duly represented.
Payphones as seen in general media culture, such as advertising and cartoons, are also represented with dozens of examples.
Opening to random pages of this book one finds, on pages 314 and 315, several photos of coin gauges, with accompanying descriptive text such as detailed as: “a housing upon which is mounted what is called a coin gauge with a plurality of openings for receiving coins of different denominations. Associated with each of these openings is a slot for guiding the deposited coin into the housing for collection.”
On the opposite page, in reference to another coin gauge construction, is a sly bit of payphone humor: “this arrangement was subject to all the ills associated with this type of coinstruction.” Coinstruction. Get it?
Opening to other pages one finds pictures of payphone plastic pull buckets (p. 219), payphone popper card holders (p. 229), payphone postpay operation instructions (p. 207), and payphone pictures of such novelties as the “telebus” (p. 359), the Australian “Long Tom” (p. 247), and the “Hands Free Phone” (p. 233) tested in Miami in 1979. There are also several interesting photos throughout th book showing “Service Men’s Telephone Centers” in Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C. These telephone facilities were set up for exclusive use of military personnel, and represent an interesting place for the payphone in American cultural history.
The volume is mostly black & white, but the closing pages contain lots of gratifyingly full-color images of payphone signage, including a photo of what appears to be a payphone sign hovering directly over a tombstone! (p. 432).
If you love payphones you’ll love Payphone History, by Ron Knaeppen. You can pick it up on EBAY for $25 + shipping.