On a recent visit to my parents' house I was surprised to see this rotary phone from my childhood in one of the guest bedrooms. While my parents may have Luddite tendencies, this was extreme even for them. It turns out that every few years whatever cheap cordless phone they purchased would fail for one reason or another. Eventually tiring of throwing more money at the problem, they simply hauled out this sturdy rotary dinosaur, replaced the old 4-pin plug with a modular RJ11 plug, and connected it to the more recent modular jack that had been installed years ago. I've shown it here next to my Motorola RAZR for comic effect.

So what's that crazy attachment on the handset? It's a shoulder cradle (H.H. Rennecker patent #2,863,954!), designed to allow you to hold the phone in place without hunching your shoulder and tilting your head. (Note to the under-25 crowd: this is what we used before Bluetooth headsets.)

Also note the stick-on aftermarket dial overlay, designed to make the numbers easier to read. I think it used to glow in the dark, but it seems to have lost that property.