1984-earlier telephones,MA bell era...

[cfz2882]

Who else here likes old telephones from before mountain bell was broken up in 1984?I have ~30: quite a few from WE from 1939-84, some GTE and a few other US made,an Italian made one and a Mexican one.The Western Electric one were of course superlative and they made most,if not all the parts in the phones themselves right up to the end-my newest WE phone made jan.1984.Cheap junk Asian import phones started flooding in after the breakup.Whenever I come across a vintage WE phone at a thrift shop,ETC. it is automaticly bought

 

[johnrk]

GTE

I bought my first home in Stafford, right outside Houston, in 1977 when I was in college. The shock was when I learned I was on General Telephone instead of Southwestern Bell. The telephone weighed maybe half of what my Bell phone had weighed, and even weighed less than my red Trimline rotary. Crappy, awful phone service--but luckily, my next door neighbor, Evan, worked for GTE so I could walk over and he'd fix things.

I grew up in the 60's with that style of wall phone and desk phone. We had white ones. They never broke. I always saw those cool ads in the Geographic for different phones but we never got any of them. The phone was just something to be relied on--and it could be.

Our exchange was Cypress-7. We went on a long vacation in the mid sixties and when we came back it was '297'. And we had to dial all 7 numbers...

 

[wayupnorth]

My mother and I both worked for the phone company. I have several original Bell dial phones and one orange trimline. Keep two hooked up that always work if the power goes out, like twice in the last 12 days over half a million here lost their power as up here, you cant trust cell coverage. So I will keep my landline that has gone from Ma Bell, to AT&T, to Lucent, to Verizon, to Fairpoint and now Consolidated in less than 20 years.

 

[gusherb]

My first collection was pre divestiture W.E. telephones. I have probably over 100 scattered about the house on display, in use, or in drawers. I have a black 500 on a phone table in the dining room, a beige touchtone square button (with LED backlight) Trimline in one of the bedrooms, an Ivory 2500 in the basement, and a beige touchtone Princess complete with dial light transformer in my room.
I used to have all rotary versions out but since going VoIP I've switched em to touchtone after discovering the pulse to tone converter I had bought introduces a buzz on the line when using it for the whole house, but doesn't do so when attached to just one phone, so the 500 is plugged into it. Surprisingly the little Obi100 ATA has no issue ringing two ringers. I keep just one ringer connected though.

 

[supersuds]

I've got a Stromberg-Carlson version of a Trimline, that seems as well made as a Western Elecrtric, though I'm no expert.

I've looked over the years at some much older phones on EBay, like a Kellogg Redbar from the Forties, or some of the fancy "movie star" Stromberg-Carlsons from the Thirties, but they always seemed too expensive to pull the trigger.

 

[fan-of-fans]

In the living room we have a beige rotary dial phone that looks Western Elecrric but it says Refurbco on the bottom. I think the year on it says 1980.

We kept it mostly for when the power was out but being on cable-phone now, it doesn't work anyway, and the rotary dial won't work with digital service.

It's still nice to have as its ringer is loud enough to hear outside in the yard.

 

[gusherb]

Stromberg Carlson phones were just as solid as Western Electric. ITT and Automatic Electric were not.
My first rotary phone was a Stromberg Carlson 1543. The yellow one in the second photo was a SC 500 from 1983. By then it was cheapened down considerably, everyone had done so by then including W.E. The white 500 and the two pink 1654's are SC as well.

 

[speedqueen]

I have a 1960 WECO 554 wall telephone. I purposely found the old metal dial one because I disliked how the clear plastic dial seemed to stick to my finger as I turned it.

 

[johnrk]

Ericophone

I remember seeing the Ericophone constantly in home decorating mags like 'House Beautiful' in the sixties and being intrigued. I bought one in the 70's in college. They were indeed a cool design from Ericsson and then they came out in digital instead of rotary. Comfortable? Not so much, certainly bulkier to hold than either a Trimline or a conventional phone. But boy, they sure looked good!

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

I have quite a few WE 2500's, a rotary WE Trimline, a WE 2702B, a WE A/B 500 set, a WE 554, 2554,  a GTE 80 rotary and a few phones from Canada, Germany, England.

 

And I do the same, if I happen to come across genuine phone company phones, I'll buy them right there.  

 

[rp2813]

CYpress 5 Was (and still is) Our Exchange (aka 295)

I bought a rotary Ericofon on ebay a while back.  I thought it would be perfect in the den.  It turned out to have switch hook issues and was so flimsy that attempting to correct the problem resulted in breakage.  I decided that if they were so poorly made, I wouldn't pursue another one.

 

That was just another affirmation of WECo's superiority in the telephone instrument arena.  Except for the Panasonic cordless/answering machine combo and the wall mount Trimline touchtone (an early model with round buttons) in the kitchen, all of my phones are WECo rotaries and they all work.  The oldest dates back to 1931, an oval base D1 type with retrofitted E1 handset and noisy 4H dial, connected to a 1931 ringer subset model 554C.  The ringer is disabled, since this phone is in the guest bedroom.  I have a few 302 models, the oldest dated 1938 with metal case.  I have several 500s, all of them black with metal finger wheels and bakelite handsets.  The oldest one is dated October 1950, when the 500 was still in very limited and haphazard production and the network block didn't yet have an integrated equalizer, and sits on my desk as a daily driver.  There is no question IMO that the 500's G1 handset is the most comfortable and well designed type ever produced.   I like the feel of it in my hand, the heaviness of the bakelite, and the solid sound it makes when placed back into a soft plastic cradle.

 

I own one Princess that includes separate ringer and AC adapter for the dial light.  It's not being used currently.   I also have a 201A "space saver" mounted on the wall above the work bench in my garage shop.  It's a manual type with no dial.  I use it for incoming calls only.  It's just a box for the switch hook and handset connections, with cradle for the handset to hang from.  The cradle is designed for an early type E1 handset, but will accommodate the later F1 type, which is what I had on hand to use with it.  The dial version was typically found under counters or in bars.  I have that set connected to a 634A ringer subset, but since I have a 500 on a nearby desk that rings loudly, I disabled the subset's ringer.

 

Other miscellaneous sets are a late '60s not-quite-modular green rotary Trimline, a '70s brown simulated alligator rotary desk set with K-type handset, a clean 1936 manual D1 oval base with F1 handset, and various other rotary Trimlines.

 

The two unusual WECo items are teamed up in the den.  The phone is a model 5302, which was produced after the 500 models were launched.   Demand for the 500 was overwhelming and exceeded supply for several years, particularly because it featured ringer volume control, which had never before been offered.   WECo had tons of 302 models that had fallen out of favor, so they designed a new case for them that resembled the 500 and modified the ringer so it could be adjusted.  They issued 5302s in place of 500s and subscribers were in large part none the wiser.  Some 5302s had the old style F1 handsets, which looked out of place on a 500 case.  Others (like mine) used the newer G1 handset that was retrofitted with F1 transmitter and receiver elements.   Just another way Ma Bell got every last bit of mileage out of their equipment.  I like the 5302 for its legacy of deceptive marketing and clever adaptation.

 

The one drawback to the 5302 is the ringer itself.  It's clunky and not as pleasing as a 500 ringer.   For this reason, I disabled the ringer and connected a '60s vintage WECo chime box along the baseboard near the 5302.  Problem solved. 

 

The only thing I need to watch is how many ringers that are active.  I'm at my limit currently for what the line voltage will support.  If I connect another ringer, the chime won't work and will revert to a regular ring that's very loud.  If I wanted the shop 201's subset to ring, I'd have to disable at least two other ringers somewhere else.

 

Here are some pictures of a few of my phones.  Except for the manual D1 oval base, all are currently in service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rp2813]

CYpress 5 Was (and still is) Our Exchange (aka 295)

I bought a rotary Ericofon on ebay a while back.  I thought it would be perfect in the den.  It turned out to have switch hook issues and was so flimsy that attempting to correct the problem resulted in breakage.  I decided that if they were so poorly made, I wouldn't pursue another one.

 

That was just another affirmation of WECo's superiority in the telephone instrument arena.  Except for the Panasonic cordless/answering machine combo and the wall mount Trimline touchtone (an early model with round buttons) in the kitchen, all of my phones are WECo rotaries (or manual) and they all work.  The oldest dates back to 1931, an oval base D1 type with retrofitted E1 handset and noisy 4H dial, connected to a 1931 ringer subset model 554C.  The ringer is disabled, since this phone is in the guest bedroom.  I have a few 302 models, the oldest dated 1938 with metal case.  I have several 500s, all of them black with metal finger wheels and bakelite handsets.  The oldest one is dated October 1950, when the 500 was still in very limited and haphazard production and the network block didn't yet have an integrated equalizer, and sits on my desk as a daily driver.  There is no question IMO that the 500's G1 handset is the most comfortable and well designed type ever produced.   I like the feel of it in my hand, the heaviness of the bakelite, and the solid sound it makes when placed back into a soft plastic cradle.

 

I own one white late '50s Princess that includes separate ringer and AC adapter for the dial light.  It's not being used currently.   I also have an early '30s 201A "space saver" mounted on the wall above the work bench in my garage shop.  It's a manual type (no dial) so is used for incoming calls only.  It's just a box for the switch hook and handset connections, with cradle for the handset to hang from.  The cradle is designed for an early type E1 handset, but will accommodate the later F1 type, which is what I had on hand to use with it.  The dial version was typically found under counters or in bars.  I have that set connected to a 634A ringer subset, but since I have a 500 on a nearby desk that rings loudly, I disabled the subset's ringer.

 

Other miscellaneous sets are a late '60s not-quite-modular green rotary Trimline, a '70s brown simulated alligator rotary desk set with K-type handset, a clean 1936 manual D1 oval base with F1 handset, and various other rotary Trimlines.

 

The two unusual WECo items are teamed up in the den.  The phone is a model 5302, which was produced after the 500 models were launched.   Demand for the 500 was overwhelming and exceeded supply for several years, particularly because it featured ringer volume control, which had never before been offered.   WECo had tons of 302 models that had fallen out of favor, so they designed a new case for them that resembled the 500 and modified the ringer so it could be adjusted.  They issued 5302s in place of 500s and subscribers were in large part none the wiser.  Some 5302s had the old style F1 handsets, which looked out of place on a 500 case.  Others (like mine) used the newer G1 handset that was retrofitted with F1 transmitter and receiver elements.   Just another way Ma Bell got every last bit of mileage out of their equipment.  I like the 5302 for its legacy of deceptive marketing and clever adaptation.

 

The one drawback to the 5302 is the ringer itself.  It sounds clunky and not as pleasing as a 500 ringer.   For this reason, I disabled the ringer and connected a '60s vintage WECo chime box along the baseboard near the 5302.  Problem solved. 

 

The only thing I need to watch is how many ringers that are active.  I'm at my limit currently for what the line voltage will support.  If I connect another ringer, the chime won't work and will revert to a regular ring that's very loud.  If I wanted the shop 201's subset to ring, I'd have to disable at least two other ringers somewhere else.

 

I'm pretty much done buying phones, although it's tempting when I come across a WECo phone in a thrift store.  If anything, I need to get rid of some phones!

 

Here are some pictures of a few of my phones.  Except for the manual D1 oval base, all are currently in service.

 

1:  1950 500

2:  1931 D1

3:  1938 302 (metal)

4:  1936 D1 (manual)

5:  193? 201A (manual)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[johnrk]

CYpress-7 is my exchange

and I certainly had no 'flimsiness' issues with my Ericofon, though I didn't manhandle it or the digital set that I bought afterward. I won't pretend, though, that it's in the same league as the boat-anchor Western Electric phones; it wasn't designed to be.

I grew up with two white phones like #1 above at home, and a white wall phone from the same era. When I went to work in an old hospital in college as a teenager in the 70's we still had rotary desk phones with those old buttons with little lights behind each one. Those little lights were constantly burning out and getting replaced. We had to click the hook buttons twice to get the operator to transfer calls. The operators still had big push-pull switchboards. I was friends with a lady who'd worked there for 40 years as an operator; she had permanently red places in both palms from pulling cords. All got replaced with the hospital when we built and opened a new one in Houston in 1977. Replaced the elevators with ladies running them, too.

 

[iej]

Ericsson is basically the closest thing to a European counterpart to Western Electric that you could possibly get. Their switching systems have formed the backbone of many networks for a very long time.

They'd an extremely successful crossbar switch system called AR. It was sold as ARF (large local switch), ARK (local remote switch for small communities), ARM (transit/ gateway) and ARE (where it was upgraded up partially computerised.) They then had a system called AKE a so called "code switch" with computer addressable cross points.

They rolled out the Ericsson AXE in the 1970s which was a fully digital system and would go on to become the world's best selling central office system. It's been through lots of versions offer the years and is still hugely popular in mobile and fixed networks.

In the old days in Europe you had what were collectively called "PTT" monopolies. They were usually public companies that evolved out of the post office and in the 1970s and 80s most adopted the band Telecom.

Unlike MaBell, they weren't vertically integrated to the same degree. So they shopped around for equipment. So I think we had a far more competitive market at the vendor level. That's possibly why Europe ended up developing systems like GSM mobiles.

Ericsson is still huge but now Nokia's acquired a lot of other companies and is similar.

Nokia bought: Siemens Networks, then merged with Alcatel Lucent (a merger between the very large French Alcatel Group and Lucent (Western Electric and Bell Labs).

So Nokia now contains three huge European R&D houses and equipment vendors and Bell Labs...

 

[gyrafoam]

I never paid the slightest bit of attention to who manufactured the phone we used on the old Southern Bell system. (I just went and looked, they are Western Electric, except one that must have come from Florida marked GTE Automatic Electric and it dials funny.)
All I know is that the service was PERFECT, no dropped-calls, and they NEVAH,EVAH stopped working or needed repair. Ever.

I still have four rotary telephones. A few from the family business back in Atlanta, we used to use as door-stops they were so heavy.
If I knew how to do it properly I would hook them back up and use them.

 

[johnrk]

Today?

I've watched with enjoyment the many Bell Telephone vintage videos they have on YouTube, including the ones demonstrating party lines, when dial phones came to some towns in the fifties, direct long-distance dialing, etc. The ones that fascinate me are from the forties showing how long-distance calls went through long-distance operators, and the umpteen steps along with little hand-written cards that were required. No wonder those calls were so expensive!

We probably have good reason to be nostalgic about how well our telephone system worked in this country back before the government broke it up. However, I remember well how expensive it could be to get service back then, my granny in the country was on a party line until the late 70's, we couldn't own our phones, etc. My parents spent two years in Brazil in the 70's as my father was an engineer for Dow. Once a month he got a call from there at company expense; to call me for that 3-minute call was $33/minute.

I replace these crappy Panasonic cordless phones at my house about every 3-5 years, but I do own them and I can choose what I want. So I suppose it balances out.

And that doesn't even get into cell phones and 'smart' phones...

 

[jamiel]

IEJ--exactly right about Ericsson. They had a large presence in Latin America landline service (the business was to a degree split up between them and ITT). In Stockholm, Sweden is the Telephone Museum which was very interesting to tour (given my background working in that business)...Ericsson is to Sweden what AT&T is to the US (and what Northern Telecom/Nortel is to Canada). Being in the business for the last 25 years--it's been a great run!

 

[johnb300m]

johnrk, I've watches those old ATT vids too! Very fascinating.
The whole production they did when the NYC exchange burned down, really showed the Bell system at its best. (Of course that was their propaganda point)....nevertheless, they pulled it off!
I dont' know any company today that could recover from a catastrophe like that today.

The vid where the woman had a literal meltdown because her named exchange was going to 7 numbers was hilarious too. LOL.

 

[48bencix]

I like the ATT phone

I got this one a year ago on EBay. I used these phones in business in the 1980's. I like the style.