Research Guides: United States: City and Telephone Directories: U.S. Telephone Directories (2024)

FAQs

Are old phone books worth any money? ›

Old telephone directories, packed with lists of businesses and residents, are a useful tool for genealogists but they also appeal to collectors. For instance, telephone directories for San Francisco prior to the 1906 earthquake and fire are scarce and prized. Prices increase with age.

Phone books still exist in the US, but they are not sold, they are distributed for free.

City directories are basically a big address book for everyone living in a community. They were used before telephone books became available, but still were produced in addition to telephone books. A city directory contains much more information than a telephone book does.

In 2008, one of the only known surviving copies of the world's first telephone books sold at auction for over $170,000. The demise of the phone book began on Oct. 14, 2010, when regulators in New York approved Verizon's request to stop mass-printing residential phone books.

AbeBooks is very useful for finding an approximate value of a book but don't use that value for insurance purposes. If you really need a documented estimate of a book's value (for probate or insurance purposes) then visit your local rare bookshop and pay for a formal appraisal.

However, more than 650,000 tons of telephone directories are still delivered annually to households and businesses across the U.S. While one-third of all telephone directories are recycled, 410,000 tons of phone directories still find their way to landfills or waste-to-energy facilities costing U.S. taxpayers around ...

Despite concerns within the industry that with the rise of digital media the printed book would not be able to survive, it seems quite the opposite – with this exposing threat put upon it, the demand for printed books is still as strong as ever.

Believe it or not, the Yellow Pages and White Pages are still around today in some capacity. However, despite their long history, Yellow and White Pages are essentially irrelevant. The internet has taken over as the primary source for local information and businesses, eliminating the need for printed books.

In the USA, most people in towns, and most businesses, included their full address in phone books, when they were still published (area codes and zip codes were omitted). People on rural country roads might have their road but not the house number, or they might list only the rural community and no road at all.

What was missing from the first telephone book? ›

The first telephone directory, consisting of a single piece of cardboard, was issued on 21 February 1878; it listed 50 individuals, businesses, and other offices in New Haven, Connecticut that had telephones. The directory was not alphabetized and no numbers were included with the people listed in it.

You may be able to find old phone books from past decades in your area through online auction websites, local historical societies, or online archives of libraries or genealogy websites. You can also try contacting your local library or historical society to see if they have any resources available for public access.

The oldest extant printed book is a work of the Diamond Sutra and dates back to 868 CE, during the Tang Dynasty.

The yellow pages are telephone directories of businesses, organized by category rather than alphabetically by business name, in which advertising is sold. The directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings.

There are several publishers of these books, and some offer printed versions while others only have online versions and directories. Most landline subscribers are entitled to a free print directory, but if you just moved or aren't getting your copy, there are ways you can order a phone book for your home or office.

There are also a number of telephone book collectors; some who make money selling their stock to those with a historical interest or who are researching family genealogies. Lifelong collector Gwillim Law sells old phonebooks from all 50 U.S. states as well as from most Canadian and Australian provinces.

If a professor no longer uses the book you bought when you took the class, the textbook you own is worth perhaps one-third of its previous value on Amazon or eBay. Your best strategy when dealing with hard copies of textbooks is to sell them as soon as possible to get back as much of their remaining value as you can.

BookScouter is a go-to solution for users who want to sell and buy used or new textbooks at a competitive price. The buyback mobile app compares prices on 30+ vendors and finds the best deals on books.

For classic titles especially, there may be dozens or even hundreds of different printings out there with wildly different values. A genuine first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird might sell for tens of thousands of dollars while a tattered mass-market paperback version might sell for 50 cents.