Bell System Equipment in service 45 years!

[captainmoody]

Here's something you don't see every day, an old 1962 Bell System Western Electric 1A1 key service unit. It came out of the same Church Rectory as the Norge washer I got in mid January.
Seeing that the old building was slated for demolition, I just had to save this multi line office phone system as well!
After splicing together some connections, it powered up and worked perfectly.
I really have to admire the quality designed into this unit, rugged and reliable for sure!
It was set up for 4 incoming lines and intercom as well. The house it was in had three floors, plus the basement so there were phones and cables scattered everywhere!
I am actually using this system in my basement now, I like the sound of the old style ring and the light up buttons!
Here is a shot of it before removing..

 

[captainmoody]

A pic of it on my desk for testing..

 

[washerboy]

tubes

Hey Captian:
Wow!!! what a cool find..not to mention toy. Are those vacume tubes I'm seeing in the set up?...also the pic with the clock...is that and maybe a 1950's Gibson range?

 

[captainmoody]

No tubes, just a lot of relays! In fact, it uses three per line, plus a few more on the intercom unit. The range was an old Frigidaire electric.

 

[petek]

What a great save!

And fun too. Not very many people would look at that and think twice about it other than to rip it off the wall and toss it in the dumpster. I'm assuming the church was paying a hefty monthly rental just for having it installed. Did the red phone come with it, usually another premium on the bill. I notice the sign says Michigan Telephone Co. was that a independent co. or Michigan Bell of the era. Around the Sarnia/Lambton County area there are still a few private telephone companies in existance that never got swallowed up by Bell to this day.

 

[Cybrvanr]

How many phones did you get with it? I used to love those old multi-line phone setups with those square crystal buttons on the bottom. I've never seen anybody selling a vintage KSU and phones on E-bay or at ham radio shows despite looking for quite a while.

You've got quite a fun system there to install in your house

 

[frontaloadotmy]

Way Cool Save Dwight

I am green with envy. I have a few WE "desk" phones with
the individual line buttons and one "Call Director" pre
touch-tone.

 

[captainmoody]

I ended up getting six standard 565 HK desk sets (several pictured) and a 661 card dialer multiline phone as well. It looks similar in appearance to a call director, but has a slot to insert a punch card that dials the number for you.
I haven't seen a 1A1 system in use for at least 25 years, can't believe this one was still around!

 

[tolivac]

I haqve seen similar peices of Western Electric equipment at radio stations-esp at transmitter sites-and still working as this unit was.Senn MANY WE line equalizer boxes-for the equalized STL program lines feeding program material from the studio to the transmitter site.--and those WE boxes were so RF proof!-No transmitter stray RF bothered them like on more modern boxes from other companies.Now the phone co eq program lines are gone-most stations use microwave STL,UHF STL and fiber optic or satellite program feeders.Remember many a day helping the "Ma Bell" folks in testing EQ'ed program lines!Freq response,distortion and noise tests.I tested a line before signing it off from the phone factory.And--always kept program or tone on the spare lines-if you didn't-the phone co folks would think the line is unused and "pull" it and try to assign it to someone else!I also liked the old "Key" phone systems too-they survived very well in the punishing radio station places.-also survived RF interference better than the more modern devices.Many folks laughed at them-but they WORKED!Just because it doesn't have the digital flashing lights doesn't mean its bad.

 

[48bencix]

Western Electric

I love the Western Electric desk telephones.

I have several dial type and touch tone phones, and some from IT&T, all made in the USA. None need power, so they will work during an emergency. I don't have automatic dial on any of them. Or any other features, but I do have the ultimate reliability, you can drop those things and they will not stop working.

Martin

 

[rp2813]

Interesting story about those square flashing buttons. My cousin worked for a large investment firm. Everybody had big consoles on their desks with rows and rows of those crystal buttons. They were always so busy that the practice began where once a call ended, instead of placing the receiver back on its cradle, they would simply throw it at the console and pretty much anywhere it hit would pop the crystal button and disconnect the call. The technicians were constantly out to fix broken buttons and wondered why this office had so many calls for this type of repair, but nobody ever confessed.

I love old WE stuff and have a small collection of phones, but only the oval base "202" model is currently in use in my guest room. I'm pretty sure the dial on that phone is super early and was likely first installed in a "candlestick" model because it makes such a racket and has small wiring differences from later ones, it's probably close to 80 years old and still works fine. Vintage WE product, even stuff from as late as the 1980's, is virtually indestructible.

I also think that Ma Bell was way ahead of the times when it came to recycling, routinely re-deploying equipment that was still perfectly good and viable. Today's non-WE drug store phones are all throw-away off-shore product that can't even last through a single user. Sadly similar to the situation with Maytag.

 

[petek]

Here's some of my sets

These 4 sets are the quintessential N.American desk set but made my different manufacturers.
The beige unit on the left is a Canadian made by Northern Electric, the sister co of Western Electric.

Both the white and black phones are ITT sets

The Yellow is a Stromberg Carlson set.

Notice the white set has a Commodore (computers?) logo design on the front, not a decal.

 

[petek]

Into the Touch Tone era

The black set is by a company I never heard of PTI (Palco Telecom Inc)

The white set in the middle is an ITT

The white set on the right is the similar but different GTE/Automatic Electric set. Nice thing about these is that the front panel lifts off and you can insert different colored faceplates. I have one set of face plates originals but you can make your own easily.

 

[petek]

1970's Contempra phones

These were designed and introduced by Northern Electric for the Canadian market. Still built like brick outhouses with the real bells etc. Some are dial, some are pushbutton and they came in many colors but this is all I have.

 

[petek]

Starlites and Princess'

On the left is the GTE Starlite phone, unfortunately this one doesn't have the built in light and transformer, still looking for one of those.

On the right what you think is a Princess is actually a Contessa phone. It's the Canadian identical version by Northern Electric of the Western Electric Princess phone, most people here still called them princess phones

 

[petek]

The Doodle phone

This is a Norther Electric phone that was introduced in the mid 70's deregulation of the Canadian phone industry. I bought this phone new in 1977 I think. You slide a pad of memo paper on the front and there's a little holder on the side for a pencil, hence the "Doodle Phone" It also was available with an optional bean bag holder that surrounded the phone but I didn't buy that,, too bad now. Again it's a heavy duty made phone with a real bell inside.

 

[petek]

The Chest Phone

I believe these were Western/Northern Electric phones, mine has nothing written on it anywhere. Anyways, they were oh so chic weren't they.

 

[petek]

The treasure inside

.

 

[rp2813]

I've got to take some time to get pix loaded here. Also forgot to mention one of my favorite old hard-wired items from the Bell System, a chime/ringer box that goes "ding dong" when the phone rings. The bells are super loud, on the regular ringer setting it'll knock you out of your chair so it's always set to "chime" instead. I have two of these, one has followed me from house to house and has been in continuous use by me since the early 80's, the other is a spare. I've forgotten the date of manufacture, which is usually stamped somewhere on either the outside or inside on most Bell System equipment, but it's probably 70's vintage with beige cover.