Henry Reccius HONUS WAGNER card

[SilverBall67]

Curious thoughts always arised when considering a circa date for the Honus Wagner (Henry Reccius Card). Please refer to this link :

http://thelibrary.org/blogs/article.cfm?aid=1065

Right hand side of the Reccius Card reads: ~ HOME TELEPHONE 5807 ~
(XXXX is a four digit telephone number). As per research done, 4 digit telephone numbers were not used until 1905.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by SilverBall67

Curious thoughts always arised when considering a circa date for the Honus Wagner (Henry Reccius Card). Please refer to this link :

http://thelibrary.org/blogs/article.cfm?aid=1065

Right hand side of the Reccius Card reads: ~ HOME TELEPHONE 5807 ~
(XXXX is a four digit telephone number). As per research done, 4 digit telephone numbers were not used until 1905.

That only applies to Springfield. A much smaller city than Pittsburg.

The adoption of three and four number phone numbers varied by the size of the local exchange. So Pittsburg could have had four digit numbers much earlier.
http://www.privateline.com/Telephone...A/numbers.html

Steve B

[steve B]

The newspaper shown here

http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...rontpage&hl=en

Is from 1900 and shows a four digit number in the Urling Bros ad at the lower right of page 12.

Steve B

[Baseball Rarities]

Louisville definitely had 4 digit telephone numbers in the 1890's. Here is one for the "Italian-Swiss Colony Wine Co." from September of 1899. I have seen many that are even earlier.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...arRange&page=1

[Leon]

Interesting thread. This is one of those type mysteries that keeps the hobby fun for me.

[Peter W Thomas]

4 digit numbers + letter around in 50's
2339W childhood phone # until 1954 when changed to OL3-3098 (olympic)