ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Old pay phones are selling like they're going out of style.
Collectors have made an online rush to buy BellSouth's boxy old pay phones that have been refurbished for home use, after the Atlanta-based company decided to pull out of a coin-operated phone business that had withered in the wireless age.
"It's a novelty. You just don't usually see pay phones in people's homes," said Hugh Bowen, a retired Atlanta police officer who bought one of the 30-pound phones. "I thought it was so neat and I always wanted one. When I saw this opportunity I jumped on it."
About 500 orders for the $135 phones were filled in the two months they've been for sale, and now there's a waiting list of about 300 more people.
"My grandchildren and great-grandchildren won't know what it is," said Bill Ray, who bought one of the pay phones and keeps it atop a filing cabinet in his Memphis, Tennessee, BellSouth office. "I thought I'd get it for the nostalgia, and it will be a conversation piece for years to come."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/03/0 ... index.html
