Old Mexican Phone Number

August 3, 2015 9:48 AM

A friend bought a vintage Mexican purse at a thrift store, and the label has a phone number.

The label reads "Olvera, S A tel 17-14-99."

My friend is curious about how old a phone number like that actually is. Anyone know?

posted by Dolley to Grab Bag (3 answers total)

This old Mexico Telecom newsletter seems to indicate that six-digit phone numbers were still in use up to 1996.
posted by mhum at 11:00 AM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Phone number lengths in Mexico are shorter in smaller cities and towns, so time is not the only variable here. It might be easier to date the purse and label by looking up the company name, or the phone first two numbers.
posted by clearlydemon at 12:16 PM on August 3, 2015

If we could acertain the number was from Mexico City the time frame would be delimited from 1946-1970 when DF phones were uniformily 6 digits long
posted by fjom at 9:43 PM on August 3, 2015