Comments on: Bill-Saving Lock for Dial Phones

By: Casandro

Casandro — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:51:36 +0000

Couldn’t you still dial with the hook switch?

By: Neil Russell

Neil Russell — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:58:58 +0000

I’d forgotten about those little locks that plugged into the dial, I saw one when I was a kid at my piano teacher’s house. I’m sure there’s a joke there someplace.

I love the last sentence; “Key may be carried on ring”. Darn, and I’ve always just thrown them out the front door into the yard and trusted my luck!

By: nlpnt

nlpnt — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:41:45 +0000

I guess local calls were still made mostly through an operator, and in 1932 it was really blleding-edge tech to have a dial on your phone.

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:41:42 +0000

I don’t see how this could work. You could still tap out the number you want to dial using the hook switch. Or just ask the operator to connect you.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:10:53 +0000

Al Bear, I remember those, but I think they went it the “1″ hole. If they went in the “0″ hole you could still dial all the numbers. The lock prevented the dial from moving past that point.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:12:30 +0000

Well the problem was that long distance phone calls at that time cost a few dollars a minute. And in 1932 dollars, that’s a whole lot of money.

By: Charlene

Charlene — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:28:23 +0000

What an awesome way to prevent anyone from calling the fire or police departments. Because, of course, saving $2.00 is more important than saving someone’s life.

By: Al Bear

Al Bear — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:41:54 +0000

Do they make them for cell phones too?

But yeah, I had a phsycho aunt that had one of those things in the 1970’s it was different than this one, it was smaller and just clamped to the number 0 but still wouldn’t let you dial the ugly avocado green rotary desk phone.