I moved into a house built in the 1950s in the north eastern US and this outlet is on the back of the house but I can't find anything like it searching online. If anyone knows what it is I'd greatly appreciate the enlightenment!

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[–] 1 point 21 hours ago

Old phone outlet.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    That, my friend, is an outdoor phone outlet. I have never seen something like that before. It used to be that instead of having a little plug, it would have a big plug, and all four connectors would be spaced out like that. That is for a phone.

    The cool thing here is back then that must have been swanky as fuck. Nobody had phones on the outside of the house!

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  • [–] 45 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    That was what we used for phone jacks before the current standard. It takes a square plug with 4 matching posts. We had one growing up.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    It looks like it works by some form of electricity.

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  • [–] 289 points 3 days ago* (3 children)

    Type 505A telephone jack. You can see one in this wiki under History.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_jack_and_plug

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  • [–] 164 points 3 days ago (4 children)

    OH, that's the name and not the current rating! Pick up there phone, it's fucking Zeus!

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  • [–] 27 points 3 days ago (8 children)

    Back in my day, our phones were powered by the wrath of Zeus. We had to anger him BOTH WAYS to get some lightning to call and hang up.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    I ran across 18v AC of his wrath stripping one side of the phone wire with my teeth on a scheme to capture and store \ use ring voltage to power devices. Free electricity you know.

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  • [–] [S] 14 points 3 days ago (1 child)

    Thank you, I've never seen older than the 6P4C, I love learning little tid bits of history like this!

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  • [–] 11 points 2 days ago

    Pre-60s phone jack

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  • [–] 20 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Cool weather cover, guess they wanted to go outside with their old phone, plug in, make a call and sit outside chatting.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Probably for plugging something in <3

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  • [–] 29 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    It's either that or something else

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  • [–] 6 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    And if it is something else, is either something similar or something completely different.

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  • [–] 59 points 3 days ago (1 child)

    That is a very old phone jack. I actually have an adapter for this because I have an old phone with that style.

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  • [–] 45 points 3 days ago (4 children)

    I wonder if the house has a pool. I imagine someone wanted a phone on the patio table by the pool. That seems iconically 50s to me.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 days ago (1 child)

    I have a relative with a phone by his pool

    He uses an old rotary phone for it, because it's all pretty basic electromechanical stuff that can't really get messed up from it being out in the rain or whatever. It can't make outgoing calls because modern phone systems don't work with rotary phones, but it receives incoming calls just fine

    It should maybe be noted that he's an old school telephone lineman who really knows his stuff, so I don't know if there were any other adapters or anything needed to make his setup work.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 days ago

    No additional adapters needed. Other than touch tone (button pad) vs pulse (rotary dial) and the shape of the plug, landline phones are pretty much the same as they were in the 30s. Everything between them has changed tremendously, but the phone on the end of the line is very basic.

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    [–] 3 points 2 days ago

    Oh, this is just one of them; there should be two other keyholes. When the three medallions of the Founding Patriots are reconfigured into their true form as Keys of Genesis and inserted in these keyholes, they unlock the way to the Path of Radiance, at the end of which is a power capable of turning back the Antichrist.

    Although, it’s hard to tell from the photo; if it’s brass, not copper, then it’s just an old furnishing anchor.

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