Most likely it was a french style phone sold in the 80's. As a collector of vintage telephones, I can say that 99% of the time they do work. As long as they were asking under $15 - $20 it was a reasonable gamble.
Yes it was def a repro, but we have such terrible luck with telephones (more than likely its the line that verizon refuses to fix) that I thought it silly that it couldn't be returned for credit if it didn't work. If only they'd allowed me to test it!
Cheers!
Suzanne