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Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.4.0-nightly.2025-03-19

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J. Steven York RESISTS

Bought this lineman's (guys that climb poles) phone for five bucks at the Habitat for Humanity store. No idea what to do with it (I haven't had a landline for a decade) but the 70s-80s sci-fi aesthetic is wonderful. I can just imagine picking it up and hearing Han Solo's death star intercom conversation coming out. Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?

The back of a safety yellow and gray plastic phone phone handset with a 70's modern industrial design there is a dialing keypad at top, and a chrome belt clip hanging from the bottom.
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KB Sez

@jstevenyork

Most commonly referred to as a Butt Set.

No kidding

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John E. Bartley, III (D) K7AAY

@kbsez @jstevenyork
Yep. Phone co was my first job after high school. Climbing up & down all the shift with a Northern Telcom (Canadian!) butt set clipped onto my jeans' belt loop.

J. Steven York RESISTS

@503bartley @kbsez
Did yours actually still have a dial on it, or was this just the first pic you found? The dial versions always make me think of 1960s sitcom "Green Acres," where the rural phone company only ever gets as far as running the phone to a pole outside their bedroom window. This is a much older model in black Bakelite plastic with a dial in a big, clunky, housing. The one I have has a switch for tone or pulse (where the dial switching hardware was all that was available) dialing.

Screen cap from the 1960s sitcom "Green Acres," where the Douglas couple have to use a lineman's phone at the top of a utility pole outside their house. In this shot wife Lisa (actress Eva Gabor, in a yellow cocktail dress and pearls has climbed to the top of the pole (with a chicken in a nest on top) to answer the phone.
Another screen shot from sitcom "Green Acres," Oliver Douglas (played by Eddie Albert in a white business shirt, red tie, and black vest) uses the family phone, a lineman's phone hanging from a telephone pole outside their house.
Mar 07, 2025, 08:03 AM·Public·Web
0boosts·1favorite
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Snaprails

@jstevenyork @503bartley @kbsez I still have a black rubber Butt (Telephone no. 280 in GPO speak), as well as a later yellow “banana” type.
I’ve attached a picture so that you don’t have to search for “black rubber butt” on the internet 😳
Photo from britishtelephones.com/t280.htm

An old-fashioned hand-held linesman’s telephone with a black rubber body, a rotary dial on the back of the receiver, and a red button switch on the side below the receiver.
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John E. Bartley, III (D) K7AAY

@snaprails @jstevenyork @kbsez Spiffy! Like the terminal connector which shows this was designed for use on the Frame (a giant multilevel rack of connectors you climbed all over with a rolling ladder).

Public
Snaprails

@503bartley The plug is double ended. On the right in the photo is for MDF E Side blocks, on the left for the test points on Strowger switches or relay sets. Most people also made an adapter or tee'd in leads with a couple of croc clips for other situations.
Later versions had a PST phone plug and a range of adapters as the number of different test and connection point types were introduced.

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John E. Bartley, III (D) K7AAY

@snaprails It's gator clips for me! (But, I was working for United Tel of Florida)

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John E. Bartley, III (D) K7AAY

@jstevenyork @kbsez Mine did, indeed, have a rotary dial. Also had an Ericafone rotary phone at home

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