How long has it been since there was a 5 digit phone number?

Question

We are remodeling an old house we bought and found an old florist basket in the attic. There was a business card on the back of the basket and the phone number was a 5 digit number e.g 2-1234.

Answer 1

Back in the early 50's

Answer 2

Oh my, that is funny. I forgot that we used to be able to dial that way. It has been at least 15-17 years that I can remember, probably longer. I can still remember the last number I had like that too, 5-3451
Ha Ha, thanks for the trip down memory lane.............
Update- I just read some of the answers, wow, I knew I lived in the middle of nowhere, but to hear people say that they haven't had 5 digit phone numbers since the 50's. I guess we were more behind the times way up north than I thought!!!

Answer 3

When I was growing up in the 60's and early 70's in NJ. All you had to dial was the prefix and 4 digits. Like clifford(25) 4624.No area code was needed or even a 7th number. My grandmother who lived in MD all she had to do was dial the last 4 digits of the phone numder and it would get her through to the person. I think it probably had to do with the population of the area code and how many phone numbers are connected to it.

Answer 4

People saying back in the 50's are wrong. I remember in 1977 ish, we used 4 digits to call in town. This was a very small town, but it wasn't more than 50 years ago.

If you wanted to call our house the number was 4255.

Answer 5

In North America, the digits 2-9 of phone numbers were allotted 3 letters of the alphabet apiece. In the UK, the letters O and Q were allocated to the digit 0, to reduce caller confusion among similar characters; digit 6 had only M and N, and digit 7 had P, R and S.

Phone numbers were not usually strictly numeric until the 1950s. From the 1920s until then, most urban areas had "exchanges" of two letters, followed by numbers. In the UK, however, exchanges in the major cities were represented by three letters followed by four numbers. This was considered easier to remember, although in the later part of this period it required the memorization of 7 characters (roughly the same number of characters as is usual for local calling in 2006). A word would represent the first two digits to be dialed, for example "TWinbrook" for "89" ; "BYwater" for "29"; 736-5000 was "PEnnsylvania - 6- 5 thousand". UK numbers had no letters at all except for those in the Director areas, where the first three of the seven digits were assigned letters, and written "ABBey 1234" or "WHItehall 1212", for example. A lack of pronounceable words, and the fact that most telephones world-wide have no letters on anyway, have led to the abandonment of letter usage in directory numbers except for publicity purposes.

The use of numbers starting in 555- to represent fake numbers in U.S. movies, television, and literature originated in this period.

Phone numbers were traditionally tied down to a single location, but the introduction of mobile telephones has changed this. In many countries, the practice of number portability allows customers to transfer a phone number from one local exchange carrier to another, or even from a fixed-line phone to a mobile phone.

Answer 6

I lived in an independent telephone area until 1979. We got a 2 digit prefact in 1977. On some of our exchanges we could dial only 4 numbers.

I guess the answer to your question is ...It all depends on the telephone company, the number of exchanges, the country in which the telephone company is located.

Answer 7

that's funny! our house had an old newspaper clipping of a hardware store and had the 5 digit phone number as well.....I thought it seemed so foreign....

Answer 8

circa 1950

Answer 9

50's

Answer 10

what country are you in,in the Uk it has been about 30 years