Despite being wedged into a packed couple weeks in my early summer calendar, I managed to get over to the Lancaster area to attend the 2022 Telephone Collectors International (TCI) show, something they haven’t had since before the pandemic.
My last and only time I attended this show was 2013, and I’ll be honest, my experience then was a good part of why haven’t been back since, although I’m chalking that up to an individual or two that went out of their way to adhere to the “get off my lawn” mentality. I’m happy to report this time around was much different and pleasant one at that.
I’m not a “serious” collector, in fact most things I have often either have a nostalgic factor, or simply that age old “I just think they’re neat” factor. I dont have a “ton” of phone stuff, but if you’ve read previous posts, I do have a small handful of items from Ma Bell, including a couple Merlin PBXs I played with last winter.
My shopping list was short; look for any interesting Merlin stuff, perhaps see if I could find a controller for a “1A2” phone I have on my “tech museum” tv stand, and anything else that looked interesting. Done!
Walking in, it looked nearly identical to the scene I remembered from 2013; part flea market, part museum, part science fair. Some tables had exhibits, some were neatly organized vendors, and others were just dumped out piles of parts waiting for a goober like me to root around in them.
I found a lot of unique things to see this time around, including this interesting “lobby” phone that I later joked with my dad he might actually hear ring
Regardless of what hobby it is, I’m often amazed at some of the items that show up to these events, especially considering the effort it took to get them there.
Some of which are soo tempting to bring home just for coolness factor alone…
A surprise I wasn’t expecting was to see the crew from the Connections Museum there; spent some time chatting with Astrid, while Sarah was bouncing around looking for deals.
All in all, I had a great time at the show, and EVERYBODY was super helpful and answered all my dumb questions. Vendors went out of their way to help, and as such I picked up some loot to play with (stay tuned for part 2 on that), and I can’t wait to attend again next year!