Hanging on the telephones no more, as blowers sold

The collection includes UK-manufactured telephones as well as Belgian, Danish, Italian and American designs

A collection of about 1,000 telephones have been sold at auction from the personal collection of a man "fanatical" about the devices.

Featuring designs spanning decades, the lots focused on iconic models from the 1930s through to the 1980s but also include 1990s and 2000s developments in communication, according to Richard Winterton Auctioneers in Lichfield.

Bidding took place online, in-person in the auction room "and – fittingly – on the telephone by prior request".

The collection, comprising more than 100 lots, sold for a total of £5,572.

As well as domestic models, items included office phones, warehouse phones, a military field device and two large telephone exchanges.

Classic Bakelite designs, GPO [General Post Office] "rotary dial bell-ringers", elegant candlestick telephones and "fun novelty shapes such as a leaping Jaguar mascot" were also among the available items, the auctioneers said.

The collection was amassed by Rev John Charles Baines, from Longnor in Staffordshire, who died suddenly this year, 10 days shy of his 57th birthday.

There are more than 100 lots of phones, with multiple devices in most of those lots

His brother Michael Baines, from Ashbourne in Derbyshire, said: "He was fanatical about telephones.

"It is a complete mystery why he started – he should have worked for British Telecom."

Other items included typewriters, a 1950s copying machine, computer equipment and a small archive of black and white photographs of telephonists dating back to the early 20th Century.