They’re from the phones you see in old movies that you had to crank to talk to an operator, commonly used up until the 1950’s. I put my multimeter on one and it’s still reading 1.3 volts. The owner told me I can take the whole lot of them if I want them which I’m tempted to do just because I like to collect old junk but I probably drag enough useless crap home as it is.

    • Jay@lemmy.caOP
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      37 minutes ago

      Not sure what designation they’d have… each one is 6 inches tall and about 2 1/2 inches wide

  • Jay@lemmy.caOP
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    2 days ago

    I was snaking a 240 volt line up through the attic when I found them. Judging by the dust I’m probably the first person up there in a few years. The phone lines have been upgraded and rewired with all this older stuff disconnected and just left behind and forgotten about.

    • SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org
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      2 days ago

      With how things usually go in such cases, when you disconnect them half the city phone lines will go down.

      • Jay@lemmy.caOP
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        2 days ago

        Thankfully that would just knock out a few peoples lines around here. (The store is in a little village of around 400 people at best.)

        • Feyr@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          That’s what you’d think, but the 911 system for the whole State probably really of those cells

          • Jay@lemmy.caOP
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            35 minutes ago

            Only one way to find out… I’m going back on Friday to snag the rest of them so if any vital services go down, it might be me.