Actually, there was a field modification that could be made to rotary dial phones so that they would not dial out on a reversed polarity jacks. It was through the use of a diode inside the set.

I suppose that it is possible that some old 60's-80's vintage equipment out there that may still have this diode installed. Aside from this, there is no way that polarity would matter on a standard rotary-dial set.


Ed Vaughn, MBSWWYPBX