Review: 31174 Retro Telephone
Posted by benbacardi,
LEGO has recently released a handful of Creator 3-in-1 sets that reproduce classic or retro household objects at a smaller scale, such as 31169 Typewriter with Flowers, 31172 Record Player with Flowers, and 31147 Retro Camera, to name just a few. The latest in this theme is 31174 Retro Telephone, providing three builds of various phone models throughout the decades from the 1960s to the early 2000s.
With 383 pieces, it's the middle of the range in terms of size for 3-in-1 sets, and as usual I've built all three models to see how they stack up.
Summary
31174 Retro Telephone, 383 pieces.
£24.99 / $29.99 / €29.99 | 6.5p/7.8c/7.8c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
An excellent build of a rotary phone, with surprising play features, though the colour wouldn't have been my first choice.
- Great rotary phone and sticky notes
- Fun spring dial and handset cradle
- Nostalgic secondary builds
- Unusual choice of colour
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
1960s phone
The first model transports us back 60 years (how on Earth) to the swinging sixties, when the Beatles were top of the charts and the space race was on—a classic tabletop phone with an angled rotary dial, curved handset nestled in a cradle at the rear, and a flexible cable joining the two.
The bulk of the telephone is a light royal blue colour, with the prominent rotary dial in shades of grey and white. A splat gear makes up the notches on the dial that would normally have been numbered from 0 to 9, although no such detailing is included here.
The headset is removable, showing the speaker and microphone grills on the underside. You can also see the unfortunate slight gaps made by the slope of the sides and how the dial face attaches, though they are less obvious in real life.
The cable was very satisfying to build and provides a surprising amount of flexibility! It connects from the base of the handset to the middle of the rear of the phone.
The rotary dial can actually rotate in one direction, and springs back into place thanks to a neat little mechanism on the underside, replicating the way the dial operated on the real thing.
The cradle that holds the handset is surprisingly complex too, with the handset resting on axles that themselves sit on top of rubber bushes, giving a slight spring and flex when you lift and replace it. The partially-dismantled view below shows the insides, with the brown axles protruding through the grey plates to the top of the model.
Finally, no phone call is is complete with a pad of sticky notes and a pencil for jotting down things you need to remember while on the phone! Three stickers provide a choice of notes or doodles for the pad. Both stationery items are simple, but incredibly effective, from the eraser and ferrule on the pencil to the upturned corner of the yellow sticky note.
1980s phone
Jumping forward a couple of decades, we arrive at the 1980s, when personal computers were starting to take off, MTV revolutionised the music industry, and the basis of the technology behind the Internet began to emerge. The first handheld mobile phones appeared, although they are a far cry from what we know of now! This model is a great recreation of one such as the Motorola DynaTAC—large, blocky handsets with not a rounded corner in sight, and a huge antenna protruding from the top.
The colour choice is unusual, with most plastic used for this kind of application in those days being beige or black. Pink 1x1 round tiles that were hidden inside the rotary phone's model make an appearance as the phone's buttons, with a further two rows of square ones beneath.
A charging cradle is included for the phone to sit on, with lights to indicate the state of the charge. The resulting model is just a little bit… dull. But the phones themselves in those days weren't anything special to look at either, so it is at least faithful to the original models in that regard.
2000s phones
Another couple of decades, and mobile phone technology has advanced in leaps and bounds, shrinking down to devices that actually fit in the palm of our hands and no longer weigh a ton. Two such models are included as the third build in the set. The first is a simple "brick" phone, with nine square buttons beneath a small black screen, and a short antenna poking out the top.
Only nine buttons seems a little problematic—most phones would have at least twelve, as well as some navigation buttons too. Also, in my (admittedly hazy) memory of this time, most phones did not have protruding antennas any more. The rear of the phone is also a little ugly, being primarily the underside of a pair of 2x10 plates.
The second phone is a "flip phone"—a handset that can fold in half to make a smaller footprint and protect the screen. Certain models of these were very popular amongst my peer group, the most famous perhaps being the Motorola RAZR. This LEGO version is much chunkier than any of those.
Surprisingly, it does actually fold in half! It holds together by four studs near the hinge, but is very easy to open. The outside shows a couple of speaker grilles around a small green screen.
Together, they are certainly recognisable as mobile phones, albeit perhaps slightly blockier versions than would have existed even 20 years ago. A LEGO representation of the current "pane of glass" style smartphones would have a lot less character than these, though!
Verdict
These recent small-scale retro items have delighted me, and this rotary phone is no exception. The spring-loaded dial was a nice surprise, and the way the cable is so flexible despite being constructed from solid LEGO parts is impressive. The little details the designer has managed to portray, especially on the stationery accessories, add up to a great model that's just fun to fiddle with.
I'm not sold on the colour, though. Maybe it will look good on a shelf as part of a theme with the pink typewriter and blue record deck, but a different colour would have been good—perhaps a red, like an emergency phone, if they wanted to keep the brighter colours instead of a traditional black.
The other two builds are fairly faithful to mobile phones from their respective eras, but have therefore unfortunately led to less interesting models than the first. I imagine most people who buy the set will keep it as the '60s rotary phone, as I certainly will.
31174 Retro Telephone is available at LEGO.com for £24.99 / $29.99 / €29.99.
127 likes
49 comments on this article
Stickers on a Creator set?? Unexpected to say the least. Still a pretty decent set otherwise, but not something I’ll probably ever get.
Blast from the past! I remember the days of the late 90's / early 00's, when cell phones were just going mainstream, but landlines were still king. And phonebooths - can't forget them!
Anyway, this set must blow Gen-Z / Gen-Alpha minds.
This set serves as a very helpful reminder that whenever people say "things just used to be better in my day", those people are usually full of it.
Although it has to be said that, like the early 'portable' consoles, those insanely heavy and ferociously unwieldy 'handheld' devices sure did help to build upper body strength. You think those big-haired, big-shouldered girlbosses in '80s-movies were all wearing padded shoulders? Think again, baby. Every day was Deltoid Day in the cutthroat world of executive business.
Man, things just used to be so much better in my day.
NPO with the upturned corner on the sticky note.
First build is decent, but nostalgia failed to trigger so no buy.
*Look at my flip phone* you have a brother.
Early 2000s phones did still have an antenna. At first it was a nub with an extendable antenna inside. A few years later it was just a nub. The nub didn't go away until a fair bit later.
Interesting assortment. The pencil and notepad are wonderful, the old phone is kinda fun, and the new phones are interesting but nothing special.
For the record, I definitely had a phone in the 2000s that had one of those little antennas.
My first cell phone in 2001 was a Qualcomm from Verizon that did indeed have a short antenna on the top. It was on the other side of the phone than the one here, though. I believe there were early flip phones that still had the nubby antennas as well.
We used to have little toy phones about this size in kindergarten and as a child of the Eastern block I know those old turn dial phones all too well. Agree that the color is not the best choice, though. Most of those phones were simply black or ivory. Back in the day nobody cared whether the color would match the furniture...
I had a phone like the non-flip 2000's phone as a kid. Definitely remember the antenna, so that is a realistic detail imo
Very cute! The colors are less typical for the two alt builds, but for the main build that pastel hue is very much in line with the trendier rotary phones of that era, so I get why they'd opt to prioritize that. I love the strong theming of the three models and how different they are build-wise even though they all cover the same general subject matter.
I think this is also a good example of how even "object builds" like this still do have playability. It's easy to imagine kids role playing talking on the phone with any of these three models, so even though they don't have figure-based play like traditional minifigure sets they still look like they'd be plenty of fun for younger builders.
That might be a 1960s design of phone, but it is a 1980s scene if those are post-it notes.
It is a shame they didn't put numbers on the rotary phone, even if stickers. Are those pieces on display in the alternative models?
Is this Bonkle
@Crux said:
"This set serves as a very helpful reminder that whenever people say "things just used to be better in my day", those people are usually full of it."
I don't remember my parents being called 10 times per day by sellers / scammers though. It was probably better in that way.
@CCC said:
"That might be a 1960s design of phone, but it is a 1980s scene if those are post-it notes."
That type of phone was around for a very long time here in Germany.
My grandparents' phone was that type of model (in light grey) and hailed from the early Sixties. My grandmother had it right up until her death in 2013!
My parents had a similar phone (in moss green) from 1979 until the early Nineties, when they switched to a dark blue one with push buttons.
These days my mother (like us, as well as my parents in law) still has landline, with one base and several handhelds in different rooms of the house.
Nostalgia factor is strong with this one. Though indeed my biggest issue are the colors. Maybe not even so much the blue, while black or red would have been better I think it does work for the main model. But those lime pieces.....yes, I think for the pencil this was a good choice, but considering the use in the other sets black would have been the better option. And that grate plate....why not just grey or blue like everything else?
Unlike the retro camera (which I still think has an absolutely brilliant main build!), this doesn't feel like a must have, but I might just pick one up if I see it at a good discount.
I feel like they should have gone for the Nokia 3310 for the non-flip cell phone, but I love that there are so many builds here. I'm a little puzzled that it wasn't beige. The post-its are a fantastic touch!
"Also, in my (admittedly hazy) memory of this time, most phones did not have protruding antennas any more". They absolutely did. My 1st phone was a Samsung r210, came out in 2001, and had one! https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_r210-290.php
Love this. Several trendy new colours appeared in the swinging sixties, moving on from the standard black bakelite. We had a green one.
From a time when you always answered the phone with your area code and number... ours was Fairlands!
This is a fantastic set IMHO. Love the color, though I totally get that it's a bit out of the ordinary, with black, red, or white probably being more typical - but I think black would be rather boring, white would destroy the color contrast with the cord and dial face, and red, while striking, has major Cold War US-Soviet nuclear emergency line vibes so I can see why they didn't go with that. To me, this light blue color successfully communicates the late 1950s/early 1960s Bakelite vibe. And the functionality and accessories are top-notch too!
I wish they would make the little spiral spike element in black, already.
The first part of the noted down number is the setnumber (31174) which is a nice detail.
Does anybody have an idea though if 0973 has a hidden meaning too?
@Crasha said:
"The first part of the noted down number is the setnumber ( 31174 ) which is a nice detail.
Does anybody have an idea though if 0973 has a hidden meaning too?"
Turn it upside down and read again ;-)
Im here to argue for its colour, this particular colour, bright light blue, was really hard to get a hold of in decent quantities for ages. Not many sets used it and those that did, did it sparingly. I know this, because I brought 5 copies of 76414 expecto patronum from the Harry Potter line to build a massive dragon out of them, as that set was the only one to use an exceptionally large amount of that colour. Im so glad we have a decent parts pack for it now, it makes me so happy. Where was this set 2 years ago?
Ahhhh.... Nostlgia. :) Nice little set but I'm not a fan of the colour choice. While it matches in with the other retro 3in1 creator sets, black would have been a more appropriate choice and would not have looked out of place for any of the models.
The freestanding rotary phone was too modern for me. We had a wall mounted rotary dial phone when I was a kid. It had a cord about 15 feet long on the handset so you didn't need to stand by the phone to carry on a conversation. Add in having a party line and oh the memories. (A party line is a shared phone line where it would ring a different code depending on which household was being called). We finally had to get a private line because the neighbour's teenage daughter would tie up the line for hours playing the "No, you hang up first" game with her boyfriend!
@Crasha said:
"The first part of the noted down number is the setnumber (31174) which is a nice detail.
Does anybody have an idea though if 0973 has a hidden meaning too?"
It is 0937 not 0973. LEGO not ELGO!
@AustinPowers said:
" @CCC said:
"That might be a 1960s design of phone, but it is a 1980s scene if those are post-it notes."
That type of phone was around for a very long time here in Germany.
My grandparents' phone was that type of model (in light grey) and hailed from the early Sixties. My grandmother had it right up until her death in 2013!
My parents had a similar phone (in moss green) from 1979 until the early Nineties, when they switched to a dark blue one with push buttons.
These days my mother (like us, as well as my parents in law) still has landline, with one base and several handhelds in different rooms of the house. "
Yeah, they were quite common here into the 80s and 90s too. I think up to the mid 80s pretty much every house had one as they were rented from British Telecom. Then only after privatisation, and the more obvious costs of renting equipment, did it become more common to buy a phone and button versions became popular. I have a voile of old rotary phones, but as collectables as they haven’t been used for years. I think they still work but are due to become defunct at the end of this calendar year.
The comment about the date was down to the post-it notes. They are too modern to be 1960s.
Imagine playing with your Ice Planet legos while talking to your friend on literally this exact same phone, what would you think about Lego creating this set 32 years later
@bdc101 said:
"Imagine playing with your Ice Planet legos while talking to your friend on literally this exact same phone, what would you think about Lego creating this set 32 years later"
"Wouldn't it be weird if thirty-two years from now we were discussing remakes of our old phones on our super-fancy new phones through some sort of interconnected information superhighway, in a future where that annoying guy from Home Alone 2 keeps setting fire to the world? What? Yes, I'll ask. MOOOOOM! CAN JEREMY COME OVER FOR DINNER TONIGHT?"
@Crasha said:
"The first part of the noted down number is the setnumber (31174) which is a nice detail.
Does anybody have an idea though if 0973 has a hidden meaning too?"
It is 0937. Imagine it as digits on a digital clock, then rotate the entire number and all will be revealed :)
That colour definitely accurate, at least for the A Model. It's pretty close to Robin Egg Blue which was all the rage in the 40s-60s, many people will outright associate that era with that colour! It's at least more stylish in a home than Pea Soup Green or Bubblegum Pink which were more of a 70s thing.
Also to add on to everyone else's comments, antennas (antennae?) were very much a thing in cell phones until the late 2000s... I remember being weirded out that a cellphone *didn't* have the pull-out antenna when I saw it for the first time.
Ok I was iffy but knowing that the rotary dial springs back has me sold!
The pencil's eraser and ferrule are well-done, but I still wish they'd kept 71017-12's head in production. Not just for this, though. It would have made a great greeble piece.
@Wallace_Brick_Designs said:
"Stickers on a Creator set?? Unexpected to say the least."
It's not the first time. It's not even the first one to build a retro model: 31147 used thim for the pictures in the film strip.
@CCC said:"That might be a 1960s design of phone, but it is a 1980s scene if those are post-it notes.
It is a shame they didn't put numbers on the rotary phone, even if stickers. Are those pieces on display in the alternative models?"
Besides the fact that the stickers would have to be tiny, the splat gear would scrap over them every time you used that play feature.
Where are the flowers? Aren't there supposed to be pointless flowers jammed into it?
@TheOtherMike said:
"The pencil's eraser and ferrule are well-done, but I still wish they'd kept 71017-12's head in production. Not just for this, though. It would have made a great greeble piece.
@Wallace_Brick_Designs said:
"Stickers on a Creator set?? Unexpected to say the least."
It's not the first time. It's not even the first one to build a retro model: 31147 used thim for the pictures in the film strip.
@CCC said:"That might be a 1960s design of phone, but it is a 1980s scene if those are post-it notes.
It is a shame they didn't put numbers on the rotary phone, even if stickers. Are those pieces on display in the alternative models?"
Besides the fact that the stickers would have to be tiny, the splat gear would scrap over them every time you used that play feature.
"
Yeah, I’ve seen them, it’s just not common at all.
1/10
Sets like these should be in own line, not in creator.
Hello?
@lordofdragonss said:
"1/10
Sets like these should be in own line, not in creator."
Creator is LEGO's own line. I doubt there is much call for a telecommunications theme so it makes sense to put this 3 in 1 set into the place where they put other 3 in 1 sets, Creator.
I got my first cellphone in 2003 when I was 18 and it definitely had the nub antenna, and it extended out further if you needed it.
@CCC said:
"That might be a 1960s design of phone, but it is a 1980s scene if those are post-it notes.
It is a shame they didn't put numbers on the rotary phone, even if stickers. Are those pieces on display in the alternative models?"
I was thinking the same thing! Sticky notes didn't appear until sometime in the 1980s, but became even more prominent in the 1990s. A lot of people still had those 1960s-style phones well into the 1990s, though, albeit in more muted colours. I don't ever seeing them in this particular colour, but I'm sure there were more variants than the ones I'm familiar with. And if you rebuild it in all red, you have a nice 1966 Batphone.
A lovely set, in all three configurations. Sharing the same light blue and white colours as the record player we just got in the spring is an odd choice, but not an automatically bad one.
I've not got it yet, but only because it's clear supermarket fodder. £25 is a good deal, but this is the kind of set that will be 25% off regularly as soon as it's no longer the newest set available
In case you missed it, the '0937' on the doodle pad is LEGO upside down. I know because someone tried to Trademark that number for 'construction toys' about twenty years ago at the UK Patent Office. Luckily a sharp eyed examiner spotted it :)
@WizardOfOss said:
" @Crasha said:
"The first part of the noted down number is the setnumber ( 31174 ) which is a nice detail.
Does anybody have an idea though if 0973 has a hidden meaning too?"
Turn it upside down and read again ;-)"
You truly are a wizard!
@StyleCounselor said:
"Hello?"
Is it three (in one) you're looking for?
@ForestMenOfEndor said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
"Hello?"
Is it three (in one) you're looking for?"
Sometimes you see this one part, this one brick, from across a crowded parts-bin, a brick you've seen a thousand times before, whose sides and studs you've idly graced so many times before, just passing it by - but then, you realise that you have a powerful need. It is this brick, this special brick that just calls out to you. It is that brick that... completes you. Or the thing you're building.
And so you move in closer, but just as you're about to take it into your hand, it slips away - and you're alone. So cold. So dark. Days will go by where you think you see this one brick in the corner of your eye, but when you turn to look at it, it's nowhere to be seen. It's like it doesn't want to be found.
Your search becomes more frantic. You become lost to reason, it's no longer even about wanting to complete your build. You now want the PART, more than you want the final build. The chase has become a purpose unto itself. You hold the parts-bin aloft, trying to peer through it. Eventually, you tip the entire thing out and dig through the pile of parts, hungrily, like a rabid animal. You dig, you dig, you dig and you dig, and - you dig.
Just as you're about to give up, there it is. It was always there. It wasn't hiding, it was just seeing how much you wanted to find it - the brick you were looking for. But as you tenderly pick it aloft and place it where you always needed it to be, you find that somewhere along the way, things changed. It's no longer a good fit. Maybe you changed, maybe the build changed, maybe the brick was never a good fit anyway. You can never build the same thing twice.
So you do what you always do - you destroy the build, you set fire to the build-space, you change your name and move to another country. And while you sit and reflect in the waiting-room of Discount Dan's Identities-R-You, you hear Dan badly crooning this exact same song, perfectly encapsulating this exact scenario. And in spite of everything, you smile to yourself. But this has happened before, and it will all happen again.
Hello. Was it me you were looking for?
@Crux said:
" @ForestMenOfEndor said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
"Hello?"
Is it three (in one) you're looking for?"
Sometimes you see this one part, this one brick, from across a crowded parts-bin, a brick you've seen a thousand times before, whose sides and studs you've idly graced so many times before, just passing it by - but then, you realise that you have a powerful need. It is this brick, this special brick that just calls out to you. It is that brick that... completes you. Or the thing you're building.
And so you move in closer, but just as you're about to take it into your hand, it slips away - and you're alone. So cold. So dark. Days will go by where you think you see this one brick in the corner of your eye, but when you turn to look at it, it's nowhere to be seen. It's like it doesn't want to be found.
Your search becomes more frantic. You become lost to reason, it's no longer even about wanting to complete your build. You now want the PART, more than you want the final build. The chase has become a purpose unto itself. You hold the parts-bin aloft, trying to peer through it. Eventually, you tip the entire thing out and dig through the pile of parts, hungrily, like a rabid animal. You dig, you dig, you dig and you dig, and - you dig.
Just as you're about to give up, there it is. It was always there. It wasn't hiding, it was just seeing how much you wanted to find it - the brick you were looking for. But as you tenderly pick it aloft and place it where you always needed it to be, you find that somewhere along the way, things changed. It's no longer a good fit. Maybe you changed, maybe the build changed, maybe the brick was never a good fit anyway. You can never build the same thing twice.
So you do what you always do - you destroy the build, you set fire to the build-space, you change your name and move to another country. And while you sit and reflect in the waiting-room of Discount Dan's Identities-R-You, you hear Dan badly crooning this exact same song, perfectly encapsulating this exact scenario. And in spite of everything, you smile to yourself. But this has happened before, and it will all happen again.
Hello. Was it me you were looking for?"
I can see it in your price.
"Retro" in USA maybe. Here in Australia just about everyone had a rotary phone until around 1990.
Bought this set a while back and I love it. Especially the DynaTAC style phone.
@MisterZ said:
""Retro" in USA maybe. Here in Australia just about everyone had a rotary phone until around 1990."
You are aware that enough time has passed that the Eighties count as retro, no?
Would you have been happier if it was in either of these colors?
https://oldphoneworks.com/cdn/shop/products/DSC_1278.jpg?v=1662063466&width=1445
https://img4.dhresource.com/webp/m/0x0/f3/albu/jc/h/02/5aa02f90-5862-4997-973e-ee908f0283fd.jpg