Hello all, welcome to my site about telephones. I collect old telephones, mainly 4th generation telephones, because to me, they are technically the best telephones ever made. More information to come.

History of 4th-generation Telephones

Brief overview of telephone generations

First generation: Woodies and Receiver stands (including candlestick phones)

Second generation: Handset stands (models like the 202)

Third generation: Combined telephones with subset and base all in one.

Fourth generation: Plastic housing, improved all-in-one network circuit

The first 4th-generation telephone was the Western Electric model 500, which was first put into production in 1949. The 4th-generation telephones are distinguished from earlier generations by their all-plastic housings and their all-in-one network circuitry.

4th-generation telephones include:

• The Model 500
• The Model 1500 and the Model 2500
• The Princess phone
• The Trimline phone
• The AE-80
• The Starlite phone
• The 4th-generation wall phones like the 554 and AE-90, which I have not covered yet. Also includes models like the 1554/2554, and the Starlite wall phone (AE's answer to the 2554).

Fifth generation: Dial in handset. Includes the Trimline and its copy-cat models.

Sixth generation: Cordless phones. From this point on, they're made by post-divestiture companies like Southwestern Bell and BellSouth, and not worth tracking anymore.

A great many thanks to everyone who has helped me with these histories (in alphabetical order by last name):

• Roger Conklin
• Russ Cowell
• Paul Fassbender
• James Hopper
• Dave Hunter
• Mike Neale
• Vern Potter
• Terry Biddlecomb

You may contact me at zuperdeeNOSPAM@gmail.com, if you remove the part in caps. (I do this to try to prevent spam bots from mining my address.)