Your Chance To Own A British Phone Booth

Posted: Apr 23 2012

Read More: London phones, phone kiosks, red phone booths

LONDON – British red telephone kiosks have been used as libraries, sculptures and even stores for life-saving equipment. But now you can buy one of your own, as British Telecom has decided to sell decommissioned boxes for the first time in more than 25 years.

The company is selling 60 traditional “K6″ boxes, which have been refurbished and resprayed, for £1950 ($US3100) plus sales tax and delivery.

The K6 was introduced in 1936 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V, and by the end of production in 1968 there were nearly 70,000.

London is selling its iconic red phone booth. Photo Credit: EAP

It was designed by architect Sir Giles Scott, also responsible for London’s Battersea power station and Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral.

Although the Royal Fine Arts Commission endorsed Post Office red as the standard color, Scott disapproved, recommending non-urban boxes be painted silver and rural kiosks dove-grey.

BT sold thousands to private buyers in the mid-1980s, and since 2008 has sold a further 1800 to local communities for just £1 ($US1.80) each. This has seen boxes transformed into art galleries, libraries, exhibitions, information centres and fitted with life-saving defibrillation machines.

Villagers from Shepreth in eastern England even turned their kiosk into a one-night-only pub named the Dog and Bone.

Now just 11,000 remain as traditional red boxes, and a BT spokesman says the number is likely to fall gradually in line with demand.

While the asking price may seem a bit steep for what is effectively a cast iron box with a teak door, buyers will be getting a bargain compared with the £50,000 ($52,180) singer Tom Jones is reported to have paid for a kiosk to be shipped to his mansion in California.

But then in all fairness … Tom Jones also makes more money than most people do.