"Yes Hubby I recognize your dear voice," from an ad for Wilson's Syrup of Tar, c. 1890.

The Mayor of Telezonia reproves Mumble-Voice.  From Bell Telephone Magazine, 1950.

Here's the best combination scarecrow, snowman, and telephone we've seen all year.  From Bell Telephone Magazine, 1944.

"The telephone face": a precursor to selfies, from Said the Observer by Louis Stellman, 1903.

We have a new item for the running joke about how water and other things spin clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.  In New Zealand, the rotary phones went from 9 to 0.  (The illustration is from Peter Jackson's horror/splatstick film Dead Alive.)  Our insightful friend Tamara notes that in both hemispheres the zero is fixed at the bottom of the dial.  Aha!  That's why we sometimes put a slash through the zero — it represents the equator, angled in honor of the Earth's axis!