Puzzle Description:

I just did puzzle #39162 by Karen Scholl. She commented on being old enough to have used a rotary phone. I am as well. I'm not actually old enough to have legitimately used one of these candlestick phones, but my father worked for the phone company and brought one of them home. He intended to convert it for us to use as our landline. In the meantime, we children used it as a toy. We thought it was great fun to take it apart and put it back together. In doing so, some parts were lost. Dad never did fix it. I think he decided that it was more useful as a toy. I agree. It was one of my most memorable childhood toys.

#1: Lollipop (lollipop) on Feb 3, 2025 [SPOILER]

Fun to solve, fun image, and fun title! Thank you, Annalyn.

Remember the rotary dial wall phones too? They came in white when all the others were black, which made them fashionable for the kitchen, where they couldn't have been less convenient. And then ooh, as a teen I was so envious when my friend got a pink princess phone.

Awesome!

My grandmother worked for a rural phone company and had, and used, a pre-rotary wall phone. It looked like a wooden box version of the candlestick phone. The part you put your ear to stuck out the front and could pivot slightly up or down. The mouthpiece had the same cradle mechanism but it was on the side of the box. Two bells at the top like an alarm clock and a crank on the side to ring the operator. It became non-functioning decor before I can remember though. Once I was old enough to reach the crank and make the bell clang one long loud time, I and all subsequent grandchildren was forbidden from playing with it :(

I had one of these sitting on my desk at home until 2018 when we still had a landline. Whenever I got a phone call, it forced me to stop working on whatever side project I was involved in because it took both hands to use. I had a habit of only half listening when on the phone. This solved my problem.

I had one like this in the '70's as a grad student. The phone company made a bunch of retro phones at that time, so it was comparatively "modern." Classic rotary, though, probably one of the last of that era, and it was GREEN. Don't know what happened to it. Too much moving around after grad school...

I had a plastic toy one (60 years ago). Yellow stick and red dial.

I was very confused by your title - from halfway through the puzzle I was thinking - this looks like an old phone not a candlestick... then all became clear!

Great image and interesting story!

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