Episode: 1364
Title: HPR1364: Vintage Tech Iron Pay Phone Coin Box
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1364/hpr1364.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 00:17:12

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Howdy folks, this is 5150 for Hacker Public Radio, and today I want to...well this is
a topic I've been kicking around my head for a while to tell you about, but actually
I was moved off-center bubble by John Culp's diversion into legacy technology with his
Vectrola. And while you folks don't know about me, I am an avid collector of old
mechanical banks. Now, not the real-old, very rare these these days, iron
mechanical banks that start to emerge, I think in 1840s or 1850s, I can't afford
anything like that. But there was a resurgence in the middle of the last century,
in the 1950s with reproductions that are quite affordable, and I've got a
pretty good collection of those, and you know the banks I'm talking about, the
Uncle Sam, you put the quarter in his hand, and you throw the lever, and the hand
comes down, the satchel opens up, and he takes your money. Which pretty much the way
the government works to this day. But I would really like to do a series on
that on those, but that's really a very, with all the mechanical actions that's a
very video-oriented series. If I do anything, I'll do it on video, and post the links
here, maybe maybe with the audio track, but to really see what I'm talking about,
you'll need to watch the videos. And I've progressed for several types of banks.
I mean, they're, I really like the mechanical banks, where there's more
several actions happening at once. There are a lot of banks where there's just one
thing like they go. Jockey banks or whatever you put, you put the coin in the
horse's mouth, and you press the switch, and the horse wings up and over the
fence and drops it in, and we just a single action. That's not very interesting to
me. I like the ones where there's two or three actions going on at once, and I
have most of those banks, at least three productions. And the interesting thing,
one of the reasons I wanted to do the video series on the banks, there's just a
derth of information on the internet on mechanical bank collecting. They're
just, there's just nothing out there. It must be a very, very close society. Most
of stuff I've learned is just by hanging around eBay and finding out where I
can afford, where I can afford. So I'm hoping when I do go into my series on
mechanical banks, I can maybe help some folks who are maybe a little lost on
the subject. Like I said, there, well, there, there were a lot of regional
mechanical banks, but there was a subset of them that were recreated in the
1940s in 50s. And most of those that I'm really interested in, I already have.
And then I expanded out because there, there are various other more modern banks.
Well, there, there was a lot of stuff in the 1950s that looked like a buck
Roger spaceships, because see that we were just on the cusp in the late 1950s,
early 60s of the space program. And there are a lot of these banks, they would
sell them in toy stores, but most of them went out to kids, opening bank accounts
for just a couple bucks. And there, you know, there's a whole series of half a
dozen or more really neat space oriented banks. And I like those because where
you get those, those are the original thing. They're not a reproduction. And
then there are several 10 banks. There are, they're very interesting. There are
calendar banks where you've got to put a penny or nickel in every day to collect
the calendar over. And then there are other similar banks that I find really
interesting that are meant to finance a specific goal mainly. Well, a couple
examples are sewing machines and encyclopedias. Back in the old days, encyclopedias
were very expensive. You didn't buy the whole set of encyclopedias at once. You
bought another volume, maybe every two or three months. And I've got some banks
for like callers and et cetera, that are meant to you, you put your money in
and it counts your money. And then when it rolls over, you've got the money to
buy the next volume of your encyclopedias and say, well, I've got ones for
sewing machines that when you fill the bank up, then you've got enough to buy
your sewing machine. And then there's a lot, there's a lot of counter banks
financial litter are meant so that it will only open up a specific amount, say
$10 or $20 or whatever. Like I said, those are more, those are more modern, but
they're not reproductions. They're the actual banks. And in the early 1970s,
oh, these are really neat to me. There was series, at least three different types
that I have of transistor radio banks. And play the, I mean, it is, is a little
right, it looks like a jewel box, but you lift the lead and also looks like
under the lid, it looks like one of these big console systems. You remember what
your parents or grandparents maybe had that had the TV in the center and then
you had the high five sets and you had the big speakers on either side. Well,
it's, it looks kind of like that. So you open up the lid and you drop it a coin
could be a penny, whatever, but that actually makes a contact to make the radio
work. And then you, you know, you listen to the transistor radio, what ball
gains from music or whatever turns you on. And then when you're done listening,
you press the button and the coin falls through into the coin bank. And you
know, so you're done till you have another coin. Those are, those are neat. What
else? Oh, and I've got all kinds of slot machine banks. Most of them not working
so you could ever pay off. I've got one that would actually pay off as a slot
machine if you wanted to. But I think a lot of those, I always used to see them
in the series catalog and wonder why anybody want one back in the toys section.
But I think a lot of them were to separate people from their money back out
in Vegas. I mean, somebody's a high roller, you had all these, you know, one
of bunch of money, you had all these little shops to try to get the money back
before they left town. And the, the little, sometimes, sometimes battery
operated, sometimes purely mechanical slot machine banks were one little
gimmick, sell them something as a moment of their visit. See where they're
typed? You know, I clock banks. That's another one. Sometimes it's completely
separate deals a clock and it's a bank. I've got those. But the most interesting
ones were it's set up to keep the clock running. You have to put in a coin
every day. I've got a British wood that requires a farthing to keep, to keep
working every day. Okay. So this is really not getting as any farther along
the technology I wanted to talk about day though. But this was market on. I bought
this deal off eBay and it was marketed as the coin box for a pay phone.
Yeah, you've served me to turn it over probably. And I thought looking at it, this
is the worst toy pay phone that I've ever seen because it's just a metal box
with key in the bottom at the top. You've got slots for 25 cents, 10 cents, and
5 cents. Well, one, it wasn't that terribly expensive. I think I got it for 25
bucks shipped. So I brought home and then I realized it was, it won the toy. So I
did some research. Now, the funny thing is, till I had this, I never realized how
a pay phone actually works. Because I grew up in the day before cell phones. I
mean when I was a young adult college high school, sometimes I would have to call
home on a pay phone when I was away from home. And it always puzzled me that the
pay phone always said, wait for the operator to come online before you put in
money. I suppose the operator got to deal with it because I, you know, I was used
to of course, vending machines that you put it electronic and non-electronic
vending machines. If you put your money in and it would record the money, know how
much money put in. And I always assume, really, until I bought this thing, oh, four
years ago, that was how a pay phone worked. But the deal is, you know, that the
pay phones were set up, you know, pay phones concept came way before a digital
transmission of information over phone lines. So the cool thing about how
pay phone actually works. And I think still this day, you know, I bought this
little box got, you know, heavy. Oh, man, really heavy. It's got, this thing got
away 15 pounds. But, you know, and still, staff still outside and then cast
started on the inside. And the folks are following home. These are pictures I
haven't taken yet. But if you, if you look from the outside, it's this rectangular
box at the top, you've got like slots, mark 25, 10 and 5. Right below that, there's
a place, I guess, the slip of card is that would be the phone number or the
business name or whatever. And then down at the bottom on the front side. And I
don't have this key. But there, there's a box kind of like a post office box at
the bottom where the money drawer is. So you take key and remove your money. If
you flip it over to the backside, you want to picture that too. You will see
what's going on that below each of those 25, 10 and 5 slots. There are these
channels, you know, running down and around and around inside the box. And all of
them, terminating in a bell. It's like the sort of concave bell on an inside
hotel phone if you were taking one apart. So all these coins would come in and
strike the inside of this bell. And you can see, once you see this, this is so
constructed with very, very length tracks that each of these, each of the three
coins, quarter and diamond nickel are going, when they're dropped in, they're
going to hit this bell at completely different velocities. And in that way,
make a different tone. And this is, this is why the operator had to be online
before you put your coins in. Because there is no digital mechanical interface. It
says, well, this is, this is how much money the color has dropped in. And then
brings it up on the screen for the operators. This is, you know, long before such
things existed. This, the operator was actually trained to know the different
things, as it were, the different, audible signs of when a quarter or a nickel
or a dime was dropped into the payphone. And in that way, they could determine
how much time you got. So if you, if you start dropping your coins in before
the operator came on, well, there was just no point because the operator had,
yeah, there was no way of recording how much money you dropped in. Still, the
parts you may find are remarkable about this device. It may have been sold to me
as a payphone coin box. But obviously, there's no phone to it. It's just a
coin box. So I did a little research on old phones, old pay phones. There, there
is some information on that online. In fact, quite a bit. Oh, I, I tell you what, I
found out. I would love, you know, to, to put a actual real payphone on my wall.
Of course, set it up so I don't have to put coins in it to dial out. But they're
on eBay, mate. You just cannot touch the things. You even modern ones, much less
finish. Just forget about it. Okay. So, got this box here with the bell. You drop
the coins in, makes, makes the bell ring at different tones depending on what
coin you use by looking up online and the original payphones were not set up as
all one unit. You would have just a regular old wooden crank phone where you pick
up the receiver and stick it in your ear. And you, you're talking to, crank it up,
talking to mouthpiece and say, Mabel, connect me to Firefly 2.6. That type of
phone. But in a public location where they want you to pay for your phone calls,
you would have a box like this screwed up to in the wall right next to it. And
when you want to make a long distance call, you would take the receiver and put it up next
to this box and then, you know, and bring you, of course, break the operator online.
And then you would drop your coins into it and she would, well, that's on sexist. They
definitely in those days, they were all female. Drop your coins in and she would hear
it through the receiver in the part you would pick up off the phone. You just hold it
next to the box. Because when they would do this, I mean, this, this was an attraction
back in the days before people had phones in their, in their own house. For businesses,
this would be attraction to put people to bring people in. So the provider, he would
get a built-in in the month he would be responsible for paying for all the long distance calls
and acceptor that came out from his place. And so, of course, he would unlock this
coin box. Like I said, I don't have a key for it. And from the coins in the coin box,
pay for those calls and went out through his phone. And he might have had a little left
over for himself at the end of the month. I rather suspect this is marketed as a tool
to bring people into your business. So I would, I would bet the average business didn't
do rather more than break even on the proceeds from their pay phone. Okay. Well, this is
a little bit of history that, oh, oh, no, let me go on. This box I have is, from the
example I've seen online, is rather very extremely plain. Most of these pay phone
calling boxes were extremely ornate. At least the ones I've seen online, the one I've
seen all, oh, man, I would love to have. But of course, chuck a money in there. If you
could get it, it, it, it functionally is the same thing. But it's all the, you know,
the American shield with the eagle. You see, you got the big American eagle and the shield
in the center and the arrows gripped in the talons. And some place in there, there was
a place to drop in coins. And just similarly, what I have is just hung on the wall right
next to a conventional crank up phone. So, and I will apologize if any of this is seen
a little wondering tonight because I recorded this after the episode two of now you installed
arched Linux. Now what do I do from a Linux newbie, which in that one I said, well, I
just recorded that after a dev random. And there's a slight possibility that I might be intoxicated.
But I hope between this and looking at the pictures that I'm going to take later in post
to go along with the podcast that you found this either edifying or entertaining. And as
always, I've been 5150 and you can find my contact information at the bigredswitch.druplegardons.com.
Thanks for listening. Let's hope tomorrow brings a better podcast than this.
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