Kinda want one for my man den one day.

I purchased my Northern Telecom Centurion pay phone (made in the 80s)
from eBay. There are lots out there on eBay, and probably elsewhere too.

Make sure you get the keys with the phone, if you can.
These things are built like a tank (and weighs like one!).

Good luck,
- Sylvain.

Look at this...

http://cgi.ebay.com/AUTOMATIC-.....7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

Eric

Bell World stores used to sell the old Centurion phones from the 80's in the past couple years, and they have all the locks drilled out, so all you have to use is a flat head screwdriver to turn the mech to open the phone up, i think they wanted like $150, i'd give them a call, shipping one of these beasts will be expensive.

Also, make sure you get a mounting plate, otherwise it will be hard to mount on your wall, i have the phone, mounting plate, and phone booth so it's easy

Eric

Syvlain,  do you have it setup so you use the coins, and can dialup the phone to change the rating?

Quoted from Tuborg

Syvlain,  do you have it setup so you use the coins, and can dialup the phone to change the rating?

No, you cannot set the phone to operate on coin on a residential phone line.
The payphones use special linecards at the Central Office (Bell here) to support
the coin-operated operation (as far as I know, anyways).

There is probably a way to get the coins to be accepted anyway in the phone itself,
but I do not expect our Bell residential line to act upon receiving or not the coins signal.

I had set-up my Centurion payphone a while ago and it worked like a regular phone
(with dial tone when lifting the receiver, DTMF (touch-tone) to dial).

Cheers,
- Sylvain.

Ah.   I was reading this article

http://www.dmine.com/phworld/payphone/cocot.htm

Quoted Text

The COCOT pay phone is different than the regular telephone company (telco) pay phone since it must do all the rate information and "billing" for dialed direct (non-operator assisted/calling card calls) inside the phone rather than relying on the telco switch to do it all. This is accomplished by a built-in computer - which handles all customer-interface by a LCD screen (sometimes even an LED screen) and voice-synthesizers.

COCOT providers can check and/or change the settings on the phone remotely. The phone itself contains a special computer modem inside where the COCOT provider can dial it up and access the internal computer of the COCOT.

and it mentioned the Centurium was a COCOT (Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone)

So that got me thinking that a COCOT phone connects to a normal residential line (i.e., the line is not a payphone line).   Would be a neat trinket to own being as I/we work @ Nortel.   I should be able to find the manuals around here somewhere....

In order to use coins, an old enough version may be rigged to use a relay that makes a closed until powered off connection upon the deposit of a coin.

ahhh... Google is your friend here: http://atcaonline.com/controller.html

Why do you want to put change into a pay phone at home? Or better yet, why even have one? I hate payphones, it's one reason I have a cell phone. Do you also rig your pins to take quarters only? Mine are on free play.

Having an indoor payphone in a home reminds me of the premise of A Night at the Roxbury. They wanted to open a club where the inside looked like the street, and the street looked like a club.

I use my payphone as a spare change collector, it works great for quarters, dimes, nickels, and no you can't make it need coins to operate, but you can just use it as a regular phone, and make and receive calls (people love the bell ringer) and it will accept the coins and drop them into the cash box.

and yes, i do have all my machines setup to use coins, as i hate when people who come over who do not know too much about pinball, end up running 4 games, and walking away from it with a bunch of games going, this way, they have to put in a coin if they want to play, no starting 4 games by accident.

Also, one of my pins has a $2 coin acceptor and one has a $1 coin acceptor so those grab the rest of my spare change, and all machines have a .984 token mech in them, and they all run on chuck-e-cheese tokens (all my friends said my basement was like chuck-e-cheese, and now it's more authentic)

Just my .02

Eric

Quoted from thunderstorm

Just my .02

Eric

Don't you mean "just my .984 token"?  

Quoted from thunderstorm

I use my payphone as a spare change collector, it works great for quarters, dimes, nickels, and no you can't make it need coins to operate,

OK, I definitely believe you.   But what I don't understand is this:

Quoted Text

COCOTS
A COCOT is a Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone. It is a pay phone which is not owned or operated by the local phone company. Unlike phone company pay phones, COCOTS do not usually run on a coin line, they just run on a normal phone line. For a brief period some COCOT companies have were using ordinary fortress phones on coin lines, but they're not around anymore. COCOT phones have computer-like circuitry in them and they handle all the billing for the calls placed on them. COCOT phone companies have always used this type of equipment, but lately, some local phone companies have started using COCOT equipment in their pay phone service.  

I'm wondering how they can work on a regular phone line.  The above quote would make me think that a COCOT phone could be setup to accept coins on a regular phone line.   I'm confused as to how an operator could control a coin return?   I spent a bit of time trying to find some manuals at work, but no luck yet.  As to why set it up, no idea really, nostalgia, geek-fun and maybe some fun with the kids who already talk too much on the phone  

Eric you have one of the coolest gamerooms.   I like the coin idea, too, as then you "value" your game more and a special means more.   I'm just oo lazy to get all the coin doors working.