Here is the cream bakelite phone I use in the old place I have up north. I was a bit surprised on the weekend when I heard the Telstra 101 message bank dial tone. Dialing the requisite numbers allowed me to listen to and delete messages. How's that for reverse compatibility? It sits between an AGE Bandmaster Duette and an Edison Standard phonograph - which makes it almost modern in comparison. Eventually I'll get around to doing something on the house instead of playing with my toys.

Mark

^ Photo?

Photos uploaded.

Nice-looking radio and phone.

Excellent example of white bakelite!

It is a nice phone. The white bakelites are classy items and not that common anymore.

I am wondering what motivated STC to include teledexes in these coloured phones but not in the black ones. I've seen white, red and green examples of this phone in anitque shops (with the very high price) and all seem to have the teledex drawer.

Were the coloured ones intended for office use?

When I started work in the sixties I used black phones like this with teledexes - don't know if they were STC though.

I think the notes drawer was an option with any colour, with extra fee. I doubt that the coloured ones would have been in many offices as PMG rental on colour phones was higher than for black ones.

Back in the day I can only recall one of my schoolfriends' family having a coloured phone at home, and his father was a dentist. I recall it because it was so unusual to see one.

Actually, the drawer on this phone is only a front. It doesn't open. Perhaps this phone was one of the later ones when the economising began?

Hi all.
Just a note about Griffins ivory phone. Not only is it uncommon for a bakelite phone - it is also unique. It is a British made 400 series made for the Australian market. What makes it unique? 400 series phones were never used in Britain, nor if I'm correct, anywhere else except here. Britain went from the 300 series to the more modern 700 series in 1959. Australia went from the 300 series to the 400 series around 1957/58. We had the 400 series until 1962 when we went to the early version of the plastic 800 series.
Now for the bit about the drawer:
When you pull the drawer out a hinged plastic flap appears. Inserted inside the plastic flap is a card usually with dialling and area information printed on it.
However, Australian bakelite 200, 300 & 400 series phones never had drawers. PMG phones were sourced locally (AWA & STC) & imports from Britian. The locally made phones, from appearance, are identical to the British ones. Except the AWA & STC versions had a flush front (no blanking plate). The British imports to Australia uses a blanking plate where drawer was meant to be. There are also some mechanical and internal differences between the British & Australian made phones. Why the British imports never included the drawer - your guess is as good as mine.

Cheers.

"Australian bakelite 200,300 & 400 series phones never had drawers."

I recall that my grandparents had a black 400 with a teledex drawer, however, now that I think about it, the phone sat on top of a separate unit that housed the teledex drawer.

That was awesome.

<Garbage removed>

^ Spam?

Sorted. No matter how much one tries, one or two will always get through.

Last night I was informed about a new piece of malicious software called XRumer. It was first developed about a year ago and has been released as a stable version just in time for Christmas.

Because this website is a 'one off' as far as the forum software goes we do not get the amount of automated signups that are suffered by forums powered by off the shelf software. However, this will never be quite enough for us to enjoy a 100% spam-free existance.

Please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XRumer for an insight into how this sort of hostile software works.

Some types of spam software are quite clever in how they operate and forum administrators and moderators need to be vigilant as often as possible. Spam software also has the ability to scan pages for e-mail addresses to attack and this is why I have recently asked all members to refrain from posting their e-mail addresses in comments and instead refer other members to profile pages. Even when a member enables the showing of their e-mail address it can only be seen by others when they are logged in.

Other types auto-register and can (I am not sure how) bypass e-mail verification and CAPTCHA (the part of the form that says "type this number here to prove you are human" and then seek to spread spam for search engine optimisation purposes by automatically setting up a member profile page with as much spam as possible. This is not limited to URLs and also includes keywords and poorly-written descriptions which form a part of a spammed website's ability to gain position in search engine rankings.

Most spammed websites these days are designed to make the owner lots of money through advertising banners placed on the site. Some of these sites are set up to distribute updated versions of the malicious spamming software to visitors' computers though and this compounds the problem. This then brings the reminder that at no time should anyone ever visit a website that has been (or looks like it has been) spammed.

When you read the article I've linked to on Wikipedia you'll notice that they mention a number of ways to try and defeat malicious software and block the automated signups, and many of those techniques have been employed here for quite a number of years which has allowed Vintage Radio and Television to fly under the radar most of the time.

In one respect, getting the occasional automated signup isn't such a bad thing - it serves as a reminder to yours truly that the problem will never go away and helps to bolster the site's defence sheild.

One thing that would help with the wider problem is that Google and Hotmail get their acts together and develop ways to prevent malicious software from automatically opening e-mail accounts on their services. The knowledge of their engineers is far greater than mine and should be put to better use for the good of the Internet in general. Many forums block Hotmail and Gmail and whilst I have chosen not to do this until now I cannot guarantee that I won't in future if this website is ever flooded.

Yes - this is a 400 series - but it is incorrect that they were never used in Britain - they are in fact a GPO 1000 series and a select few were issued in the British market. They in fact used the same handset mould as the 700 series plastic phone issued by the GPO.

400 series such as this are more common here of course and the cream is a genuine bakelite (urea) (not diakon or perspex as the later were) made by GEC and some Ericsson.

Nice example

Finally - it is also incorrect that the PMG never issued phones with drawers - a select few did in fact have drawers - rare - but they did and of course - only in the 300 series. What never came with a drawer was the 200 series here - or the pyramid as they are known