Speaking of lasting.

I was doing some quick looking around and came across a site dedicated to those old phones. Interesting stuff and as they put it on the splash page:

Western Electric telephones made prior to the breakup of the Bell System (January 1, 1984) were designed and built to last for decades. If a Western Electric phone ever quit working your local Bell Operating company would send out the “telephone man” to your house and fix it for free. Those days of quality built telephones and free visits to your home by a telephone repair person are gone - replaced by cheap throw-away phones from Taiwan and China.