Sunday, January 12, 2025

Wallet card with an alpha-numeric phone number sighting

I spotted this today, of all places on a hand dryer in the restroom of a theater in Bellmore, NY. Check out the phone number: IVanhoe 9-9300.

Janvey & Sons still exists to this day, and they still have the same phone number, though with the more prosaic "489" instead of "IVanhoe 9". 

Does this hand dryer actually date back to the late-1960s move away from alpha-numeric phone numbers? Possibly - the theater is older than that, but was heavily remodeled in recent years. The hand dryer could have been from before the remodel or bought used. It is also possible that Janvey was still using the old-style number for a while later, though a quick google search doesn't turn up anything later than the 1950s. 

Whenever it's from, it's definitely old and I love finding these rare instances of old phone numbers still existing the way they would have 50+ years ago.


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