# Strange wall plug.



## Kent Whitten (Mar 24, 2006)

Anyone identify this? c1965 according to the owner


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## Texas Wax (Jan 16, 2012)

Phone jack? daaaaahhhhh


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## griz (Nov 26, 2009)

Yup, does look a lot like the old Ma Bell hook up.


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## Texas Wax (Jan 16, 2012)

Formica laminate dates it to :whistling circa 1964 .... grew up with both in the family homestead


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## griz (Nov 26, 2009)

here ya go...

Look at the white plug, bottom left.


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## tjbnwi (Feb 24, 2009)

If they wish to use the jack you can purchase an adapter. 

http://www.amazon.com/Leviton-C0246-I-4-Prong-Modular-Adapter/dp/B00002NAZB/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_1

Tom


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## Tinstaafl (Jan 6, 2008)

Yep, definitely a phone jack.


















Unless it's something else.


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## drspec (Oct 21, 2012)

tjbnwi said:


> If they wish to use the jack you can purchase an adapter.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Leviton-C0246-I-4-Prong-Modular-Adapter/dp/B00002NAZB/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_1
> 
> Tom


why would you waste money on an adapter

just change out the jack


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## 480sparky (Feb 1, 2009)

drspec said:


> why would you waste money on an adapter
> 
> just change out the jack


Jack? Why waste money on a jack?

Just get a cell phone. :whistling


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## Exlud (Jun 23, 2013)

griz said:


> here ya go...
> 
> Look at the white plug, bottom left.


http://xkcd.com/1072/


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## Kent Whitten (Mar 24, 2006)

We must have been sheltered here in Maine. I've never seen anything remotely like that. Or perhaps a better explanation is that I never paid attention. I recall almond colored plastic ones, surface mounted. Nothing recessed. Definitely no on the counter top. 

This was such a time travel house. Everything is pretty much original from the 60's in mint condition. Red sinks, George Jetson lighting, stairs were bizarre.


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## tjbnwi (Feb 24, 2009)

drspec said:


> why would you waste money on an adapter
> 
> just change out the jack


You will need to get a round modular jack. The mud rings suck to get out and a rectangular jack will not cover the opening.

I can't convince my wife to get rid of the home phone. She's to old to change her ways.

Tom


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## Speedy Petey (Sep 30, 2003)

Kent Whitten said:


> We must have been sheltered here in Maine. I've never seen anything remotely like that.


For real??
How old are you?

I'm 48 and the late 50's house I grew up in had several of them all over. I remember as a kid them phasing in modular plugs.


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## mudpad (Dec 26, 2008)

tjbnwi said:


> I can't convince my wife to get rid of the home phone.
> 
> Tom


Me either. We pay Ma Bell 35 bucks a month for minimal service just to say we have a land line, on top of the 300 a month we pay for all the extended family smart and regular cell service. The only thing we get on the land line is robo calls.


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## SuperiorHIP (Aug 15, 2010)

We had a few of those jacks in the house I grew up in in the 80's, house was built in the 60's I believe.


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## Calidecks (Nov 19, 2011)

mudpad said:


> Me either. We pay Ma Bell 35 bucks a month for minimal service just to say we have a land line, on top of the 300 a month we pay for all the extended family smart and regular cell service. The only thing we get on the land line is robo calls.


Just get ooma it's free and you can keep your number. My wife wouldn't part with the home phone so this is what I got from costco. You can't even tell it's an internet phone.


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## Kent Whitten (Mar 24, 2006)

Speedy Petey said:


> For real??
> How old are you?
> 
> I'm 48 and the late 50's house I grew up in had several of them all over. I remember as a kid them phasing in modular plugs.


I'm dead serious. I would have noticed something like that in anyone's home. I'e been in hundreds of older homes here and there's nothing like that. I'm 36 btw :whistling :laughing:

Things are a little behind the times here. Like I said, I recall surface mounted plastic types that resemble the layout, but that is way too fancy to actually make it integrated into the wall. We had Radio Shack specials and electrical tape holding our telephone lines together.


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## Kent Whitten (Mar 24, 2006)

Oh, and I wasn't the only one standing there saying "wtf is that thing?" A very good builder, who is not from Maine, did not know what it was, as well as the owner.


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## Doctor Handyman (Mar 13, 2012)

That rotary phone and 4 prong jack brings back memories. 

Custom SoCal home built in 1966 by my father, every room had one of those jacks.

Back then, you leased the phone from the company. We had two phones for a 3000sf home, one in the kitchen, one in the master bedroom. Dad paid extra each month for that second phone.

Being cheap, he thought it was great buying additional phones at garage sales and swap meets. Now each room had a phone and he felt good about "screwing the phone company". However, when we needed a technician for phone service, we would have to gather up the illegitimate phones and hide them so we wouldn't get caught and charged. Probably was $1.00/mo back then for the additional phones.

If he were alive today he would be amazed and probably a little disappointed to see how businesses have devised so many ways to extract every dime they can from subscribers (phone, cell, cable, satellite, internet, etc).


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## tyb525 (Feb 26, 2013)

Never seen a wall jack like that either, but I have seen many 60's houses like that, seemingly frozen in time


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## Frank Castle (Dec 27, 2011)

Doctor Handyman said:


> ...
> Back then, you leased the phone from the company. We had two phones for a 3000sf home, one in the kitchen, one in the master bedroom. Dad paid extra each month for that second phone.
> 
> Being cheap, he thought it was great buying additional phones at garage sales and swap meets. Now each room had a phone and he felt good about "screwing the phone company". However, when we needed a technician for phone service, we would have to gather up the illegitimate phones and hide them so we wouldn't get caught and charged. Probably was $1.00/mo back then for the additional phones.
> ...



Who needs an adapter?

This phone sits on my night stand to this day. Still works. Can't dial out on it anymore, but the bell on this thing will raise the dead.

I leave the old plug on there cause I like it. Reminds me of when I found the phone in my grandpa's attic when I was a kid, took it home and wired up with the plug so I could use it in my room and have that extra phone without paying for it.

That's yesterdays newspaper it's sitting on just for the picture.


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## Big Shoe (Jun 16, 2008)

I do not recall ever seeing one of those old jacks in my younger days. 

A lot of the old phones had a switch that you could adjust the ring from loud to soft.


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## MarkJames (Nov 25, 2012)

There's also a round wall plate of similar vintage. Seen those? My folks had them installed in their newly built home in the early 60's....I still admire the installation quality of their trim, esp. the door casings. Everything is stained & coated in varnish or something. All joints still snug and solid. Not a hammer dent to be found anywhere.


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## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

Kent Whitten said:


> Oh, and I wasn't the only one standing there saying "wtf is that thing?" A very good builder, who is not from Maine, did not know what it was, as well as the owner.


You don't see many around here because they transitioned most directly from Bell owned hard wired phones to RJ11s. The 4 pin connector is called a 505A and was only used between 65 and 75 when the registered jack came out.


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## Texas Wax (Jan 16, 2012)

Doctor Handyman said:


> Back then, you leased the phone from the company. We had two phones for a 3000sf home, one in the kitchen, one in the master bedroom. Dad paid extra each month for that second phone.
> 
> Being cheap, he thought it was great buying additional phones at garage sales and swap meets. Now each room had a phone and he felt good about "screwing the phone company". However, when we needed a technician for phone service, we would have to gather up the illegitimate phones and hide them so we wouldn't get caught and charged. Probably was $1.00/mo back then for the additional phones.
> 
> If he were alive today he would be amazed and probably a little disappointed to see how businesses have devised so many ways to extract every dime they can from subscribers (phone, cell, cable, satellite, internet, etc).




LOL Didn't have to pay to have your "leased" phones and phone lines, on the house, side serviced.


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## Texas Wax (Jan 16, 2012)

Inner10 said:


> You don't see many around here because they transitioned most directly from Bell owned hard wired phones to RJ11s. The 4 pin connector is called a 505A and was only used between 65 and 75 when the registered jack came out.


They were available in the US prior to 65


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## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

Texas Wax said:


> They were available in the US prior to 65


How prior?


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## hbiss (May 23, 2007)

Phone jack. Those stopped being used in 1984 when the phone companies broke up and allowed you to buy your own stuff and everything went modular.

-Hal


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## Texas Wax (Jan 16, 2012)

Inner10 said:


> How prior?


Not much, a year or two prior to 1964 maybe. Could have been a regional 'roll out' type thing. I don't doubt that it was the absolute standard after '65, tho.


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## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

Texas Wax said:


> Not much, a year or two prior to 1964 maybe. Could have been a regional 'roll out' type thing. I don't doubt that it was the absolute standard after '65, tho.


So I'm not off by 20 years though? :laughing:

I bet some areas of north america didn't even see them and went right to RJs.


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## tedanderson (May 19, 2010)

Frank Castle said:


> This phone sits on my night stand to this day. Still works. Can't dial out on it anymore, but the bell on this thing will raise the dead.


Reverse the polarity on your wiring and you should be able to dial out with it. Older Western Electric phones are sensitive in that regard.



Doctor Handyman said:


> Probably was $1.00/mo back then for the additional phones.


Believe it or not, there are many long-time phone company subscribers who are STILL paying a few dollars extra a month to lease their phones. 

I imagine that between the mid 60's and mid 70's the standards were somewhat ambiguous. I've seen buildings that were constructed during this era that have both the 4-prong and hard-wired jacks. Also I've seen houses that have 25-pair cable daisy-chained through all of the rooms while others simply had the 2-pair/4 wire cabling going throughout the house.



Texas Wax said:


> Could have been a regional 'roll out' type thing. I don't doubt that it was the absolute standard after '65, tho.


It was probably optional for someone who could afford only 1 phone but had the infrastructure in place to have a phone in any room.


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## Tinstaafl (Jan 6, 2008)

tedanderson said:


> Reverse the polarity on your wiring and you should be able to dial out with it. Older Western Electric phones are sensitive in that regard.


Never ran into that with a rotary dial. Touchtone, plenty of times.


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## drspec (Oct 21, 2012)

480sparky said:


> Jack? Why waste money on a jack?
> 
> Just get a cell phone. :whistling


and what do you propose someone do that gets little or no cell reception in their house?


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## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

drspec said:


> and what do you propose someone do that gets little or no cell reception in their house?


Cell extender.


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## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

Tinstaafl said:


> Never ran into that with a rotary dial. Touchtone, plenty of times.


It matters for your ring tone on your party line, not dialing out on rotary.


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## Frank Castle (Dec 27, 2011)

Big Shoe said:


> A lot of the old phones had a switch that you could adjust the ring from loud to soft.


No ringer switch on that old baby. Just a loud bell!



tedanderson said:


> Reverse the polarity on your wiring and you should be able to dial out with it. Older Western Electric phones are sensitive in that regard.


It's not the wiring. It used to work great. My VOIP does not recognize the rotary dialing. :no:


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## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

Frank Castle said:


> No ringer switch on that old baby. Just a loud bell!
> 
> It's not the wiring. It used to work great. My VOIP does not recognize the rotary dialing. :no:


Call you service provider and ask for an adaptor, they may have one that works with their system.


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## Texas Wax (Jan 16, 2012)

Inner10 said:


> So I'm not off by 20 years though? :laughing:
> 
> I bet some areas of north america didn't even see them and went right to RJs.


'65 on would be for new installs and changing out phones that where 'hard wired. That was one selling point on the "lease" - service was free.

Many family members who worked for Ma Bell (Wisconsin)


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## VinylHanger (Jul 14, 2011)

If the house is stuck in the 60's, everything is mint, just tell them that is what everyone wants now. Bring in a cleaning lady, charge them 50,000 bucks for the "new" design and go to the bank. :laughing:

I would love to find a stuck in the 60's house. The fixtures are worth good money alone. The tile can be, and I love the mid-century look and feel.


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## Kent Whitten (Mar 24, 2006)

Inner10 said:


> So I'm not off by 20 years though? :laughing:
> 
> I bet some areas of north america didn't even see them and went right to RJs.


Like....Maine for instance? :laughing:


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