My mother is not typically an old-fashioned person, but when she spotted this phone in Service Merchandise many years ago, she just had to have it. This phone had been with us for many years by the time she decided to leave it when my parents moved last. I have to say that it did look pretty nice in the kitchen we had in the large two-story home I spent many of my teenage years in.
Most of the phone is made of wood with a few brass touches here and there. The phone measures approximately 8”w x 7”d x 17”h. The shape is like a long rectangular with the phone features on top and a slanted shelf/hinged storage compartment on the bottom for taking messages and storing your telephone accessories. All together, this phone weighs in at around 6 lbs., which is much heavier than today's basic telephones.
The top/front features two brass ringer bells and two large round circles that contain the rotary dial and the imprinted numbers. This phone features two dial methods: push button and tone dialing. There is a crank handle located on the right side if the phone and the telephone receiver is located on the right side of the phone. The receiver is mostly wood and has two brass pieces on the earpiece and talk piece. The telephone has a normal stretch telephone cord. There is a volume control located on the side for the ringer and the receiver.
My parents purchased this phone for $69.99, which is a much higher price than what you can pay for it today. Although I have also seen it priced more than that in some places. I have seen it located at Amazon.com and Fingerhut.com. As Service Merchandise is no longer in business, it would be impossible to purchase it through them.
I do have to say that this phone did match out wood cabinets in the kitchen and added a little bit of style with the old-fashioned design. It looked cute. And the best thing was that you could actually use it and it wasn’t a useless item. Despite the fact that we had this telephone for over 10 years, it still worked perfectly when we left it in the house.
Over the years, it did take it’s beating due to having a phone cord and not being an actual portable phone. When putting on hold, we would place the receiver on the top of the phone, and it would actually fall off on occasion. We did replace the phone cord once, but that was not because there was anything wrong with it. It turned out that our kitchen was so large in the two-story house that the telephone didn’t reach through the kitchen to the doorway. So we just decided to buy a longer cord.
We originally purchased this phone over 10 years ago when it wasn’t necessary to have cordless telephones in the house. We did bring it with us to the two-story split-level home, but I do have to say that we did not use it all that much. It just didn’t make sense to use it and have to run downstairs and then back upstairs to use the phone. So it sat in the kitchen, unused most of the time. If we were in the kitchen and knew we were not going to leave the kitchen while talking, we would just use this phone. The operation is the same as other phones, just pick up the receiver and dial the number you want. There are no extra features, but this phone was great for the kitchen.
The
Crosley Country Kitchen Wall Phone CR91 is a great showpiece item, but not really practical anymore unless you have a small house. It would look good in a country-decorated kitchen or if you just want to add some old-fashioned style to a room.
~ Happy Talking!
Kim
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