When I was growing up, and just barely tall enough to reach a pay phone I never passed one without trying the coin return. Rarely if ever did this effort payoff.
Tippi Hedrin used one for protection from "The Birds." Maxwell Smart pushed a button in one to drop himself down to headquarters. And everyone knows what Superman did inside them. Tragically, all three of these poor souls might be up the creek today. Try and find a phone booth when you need one!
The first phone booth was designed by William Gray in 1889. It was implanted in a Connecticut bank. The difference between Gray’s model and its successors is that callers could wait to pay until after the completion of the call.
In 1898, Western Electric changed this system and implemented the prepay system still used today.
By 1902, pay telephones had reached such popularity that there were 81,000 installed in the United States. In 1905, the first outdoor model was installed in Cincinnati. It had a wooden structure. In fact, the glass booths weren’t implemented until the 1950s.
People took to the pay phone immediately. By 1902, their number in the USA had increased to 81,000. The number of phone booths just grew and grew.
Pay phones have been largely replaced by cellphones. The United States had more than 2 million pay phones in 2000, but now has about 425,000, CNN reported in late 2012.
The structures which gradually replaced the phone booth aren't really phone booths at all. They're called kiosks now. Sitting on pedestals, open to the elements, not much of interest can take place here. Not even much of a phone conversation! When calling from a kiosk, it takes an act of supreme concentration to hear the person on the other end of the line.
I guarantee you won’t find any coins here. But, you will find a cache! Happy Hunting.