Number PULEAZE! Part One:

[rp2813]

Yeah Jim, as I stated above, Pacific Telephone was Ma Bell's ugly stepchild.  They had a lot of catching up to do after the modified final judgement for divestiture of the "Baby Bells" by AT&T effective 1/1/84. 

 

Joe, let me guess.  The Oldsmobile was home to St. Christopher, and he was glued to the speaker grille.  As for St. Anthony, was your mom always losing things?

 

[toploader55]

Ha !

I forgot about that Ralph. Yes, it seemed many cars back in the 50s to late 60s had St. Christopher on the Dash. My Dad had a St. Christopher medallion he kept in the Glove Box as he did not like anything on the dash nor did he ever have a bumper sticker or a Dealer's plaque or License plate frame with any message or advertising.

No Hi Jack.

 

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Bell Telephone 1958

 

 

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[rp2813]

All of our extension phones were bootlegged in by my dad.  He disabled their ringers, as the level of current during the ring cycle was monitored by Ma Bell to detect any equipment they didn't know about and could charge for.  He routed all of the wires through a false electrical box covered with a porcelain light bulb receptacle that was attached with a single screw so it could be swung out of the way.  A single pair of alligator clips connected all of the extensions to the adjacent telephone terminal block.  If ever there was a call for service, he'd go down and unclip the wires and shove them into the decoy electrical box behind the porcelain receptacle.

 

My room didn't have a phone, so one day when I was 7 or 8 I took it upon myself to install one.  I got an old oval base phone off a shelf in the garage and proceeded to take it upstairs and stick the wires into an electrical outlet.  Of course the smoking began immediately and I ran out of the room.  My older sister had to go in and yank the phone out of the wall.  There was a black mark on that outlet for many years afterward, and my dad was not at all happy that I had ruined that old phone. 

 

[48bencix]

Model 300

In Martinez, CA we had the Western Electric Model 300 with no dial. We had operators until the late 1950's when Pacific Bell came to the house and added a dial to that same phone. We had an additional extension installed at the same time. That phone was there for decades.

When I moved from Berkeley to San Francisco in 1969 my roommate insisted that we get touch tone service. I think it was an extra $6 per month.

I still have my ATT copper land line and it is copper to the pole and after that I do not know. It may be fiber to the box on the next street that was put in for Uverse services. I keep it because I think it may work when the power goes down like it always used to. I have heard ATT will eventually get rid of the copper lines. I have a cell phone but don't trust the robustness of the system. There is little regulation of the system, for instance no generators are required at cell tower locations. I have two Cortelco Phones that look like Western Electric and have real bells in them. I donated my other phones when I found out how little they are really worth.

 

[xraytech]

I have this lovely Western Electric model in my living room. My grandparents had it since their marriage in 1952, I assume it was a used unit at that time.
I’m undecided on which exchange I want in center of the dial.
Should I go with the LUther7 number my grandparents had, or if I should use my WHitney7 number.

 

[supersuds]

I would go with your current exchange. Having the (correct) phone number in the center of the dial is a classy touch.

Thanks for explaining about the ringers, Ralph. Our first extension phone (a curious hybrid of a 500 base and a long, heavy 300 handset) had no ringer and that must have been why.

 

[Ultramatic]

Future kitchen phone...

 

 

 

This Western Electric 554 was manufactured in June 1962. The modular plate has a date of June 1982. It was amazingly filthy when I got it last year. Cord is new. Even the wall jack will be age appropriate.

[this post was last edited: 11/17/2018-22:53]

 

[wayupnorth]

Thats the white one in my garage, so that is a 554. I forgot after I left the phone company all the phone model numbers. I just know a landline phone can go my closest switching station still and go thru. Cell service is spotty, at best in Maine without going thru costly International roaming from Canada. They have the towers close to our border but the big cell services cant be bothered with giving decent service around here because we are all forests and lakes. I'll keep my stupid TracPhone that can make and receives calls. Someday I may get one with camera when I can use one.

 

[rp2813]

John, what you had with that extension phone was a model 5302.  Those phones were basically the old 302 type (as seen in Sam's picture above) that were given a new case and dial assembly to resemble a model 500.  During the first half of the 1950s, the 500s were in such demand that Ma Bell couldn't keep up.  Seeing as how Ma Bell was the undisputed queen of corporate frugality, they hatched a plan to give the suddenly undesirable model 302 a new look.

 

One of the reasons everybody wanted the 500 was the loudness adjustment for the ringer.  Western Electric made modifications to the 302 base that gave it a ringer adjustment, and with the more modern looking case and dial assembly, they fooled millions of subscribers into thinking they were getting a new model 500 when they were actually getting an old, recycled many times over model 302 with a ringer adjustment.  Some of the 5302 models got a G1 handset like the 500s, others kept the old style F1 handset, which looked just so wrong on a 500-type base.  The G1 handsets required modifications to accommodate the transmitter and receiver elements from the F1 handset because the elements used in the 500's G1 handsets were not compatible with the 302's older technology.

 

I have a model 5302 with G1 handset.  I was using it the den at our previous house, but it's boxed up now.  I liked the idea of people thinking they were using a '60s phone when really it was much older.  At first glance it's not easy to tell.

 

The guts from this:

 

Combined with a modified case from this:

 

 

Equals this:

 

 

Or this (like mine):

 

 

How they did it:

 

[this post was last edited: 11/18/2018-00:19]

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

A Western Electric Princess phone I picked up last year. Manufactured April, 1960. Sadly one of the prongs of the modular plug has broken off.

 

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A Western Electric C/D 500 set manufactured December 1964. This phone was hard wired. Notice how thick the wire to the wall was. This is just like my parents bedroom phone when I was growing up.

 

[soapgirl]

Funny story about a Pennsylvania Bell installer. My 13th birthday present was a phone in my room. Those were the days when you were allowed to let repair men into the house before your parents were home from work. The Bell man came right after I got home from school. I watched him string the line down the hall from my Mom's room to mine and put the jack in. He plugged the Trimline phone in. He did the callback to test the phone. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. After he got the third phone from the truck and still had the same results I told him I knew what was wrong. He said "Kid, if you can tell me what's wrong you can have my job!" So I told him that the callback only worked when he was hanging up on the base, and never worked when he hung up on the handset. He tried it. I was right. He gave me the turquoise color phone I wanted and left in a huff. Mom got home just a bit later. She was fit to be tied when she saw the installation. Joe Lineman had stapled the line from her jack, along the baseboard down the hall, over and around two doors into my room instead of fishing a line through the wall. She called the phone company, demanded a supervisor, and gave them a piece of her mind. They came out the next day and fixed it, and at a time Mom could be there to supervise.

 

[justjunque]

Louis,

After my grandmother passed away, I rented her apartment for a while, before buying a house.
She had a black, hardwired 500 in her bedroom.
When I was moving out, family members told me to take the phone with me, because nobody else wanted it. They probably would have thrown it away.
I still have it, but it needs cosmetic restoration, and to be rewired for modular.
If I'm not mistaken, it's all dated March of 1954.

Barry

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

Very cool Barry. There are various ways to polish up that phone. And rewiring it to a modular cord is a cinch. Click the link, I think this would be the appropriate line cord for your 500.

http://www.oldphoneworks.com/cord-line-vinyl-spade-modular-black-round-7.html

 

[rp2813]

Barry, try some Brasso on that dial bezel and see if it removes the white film.  Pry up the number plate at top dead center and then loosen the nut underneath it so the finger wheel can be removed to allow easy access to the whole bezel.

 

Brasso will also shine up the handset and case.  Unless that phone saw refurbishing, it should still have its heavy original bakelite handset.

 

Here's what you need to put on that hard wired original mounting cord so it can be plugged into a modular jack (no need to buy a whole new cord).  You might be able to find one cheaper than this ebay listing:

 

https://www.ebay.com/i/111524722273?chn=ps

 

[Ultramatic]

A rather odd bird...

 

 

For me at least. A General Telephone & Electronics Mod 80. Manufactured July 1978.

 

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International Telephone & Telegraph 1956

 

 

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BSR Phone Butler 1974

 

 

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[justjunque]

Louis and Ralph,

Thanks for the tips!
That replacement cord does look like it would be the right one.
I like that it's round, like the original.

And, that adapter would probably work too.
I haven't seen the phone in a while.
It does have the heavy handset!
But, now that I'm thinking about it more, the dial is also sticky.
I don't want to mess with the mechanical workings myself, (all thumbs), and I don't want to replace the dial assembly altogether, because this original one always had such a great sound to it! Plus, I believe the phone is almost, if not 100% original.
I know a guy who does a beautiful job refurbishing vintage phones. I would just have to get up the nerve to ship it to him. I'm just afraid of it getting damaged in transit after 60+ years.

I do have this similar, albeit newer, modular one that's ready to be plugged in and used.
This is a picture when I first got it from eBay. It polished up beautifully since then.
I still want to get my grandmother's working again eventually though.

Barry

 

[Ultramatic]

You're very welcomed Barry.

 

 

I guess it's a question of esthetics when it comes to the line wire Barry. Wow, that 500 led a hard life. Never seen one with a broken finger stop.

 

[rp2813]

Barry,

I didn't even notice the broken finger stop. 

 

I think it's worth putting the older phone into use.  The 500 is really easy to work on.  Loosen the two screws at front and rear on the bottom and the case will lift off.  The dial is held in place by two or three screws depending on the age of the chassis.  Two on the sides and the third one (if there) in front.  You don't have to remove them completely; just loosen them enough to lift the dial off the mounting bracket.  The intricate part of the job is removing the transparent plastic cover for the mechanism behind the dial.  The two tiny screws that hold it in place can easily get lost, and you'll need a smaller screwdriver to remove them.  

 

Use just a tiny bit of light oil such as Zout or 3-in-1, like on the tip of a toothpick, and apply sparingly to the exposed gears and any related posts that may also rotate.  After each application, give the dial a try and see if it's working properly.  Don't over-lube.  Dab away any excess with a paper towel.  It's also not recommended to lube the spring mechanism (located inside a round brass casing about the same diameter as a nickel), but I've done so in the past and haven't had any problems.  At worst, lubing that spring would perhaps cause the finger wheel to return faster than normal.  I would only do this if lubing the gears didn't help.  The spring mechanism is calibrated and is best left alone.

 

If you restore the dial to proper operation and then outfit the end of the mounting cord with the modular adapter, the phone will probably work fine.  If it's been sitting for a long time, unscrew the cover for the transmitter capsule and remove the capsule from the handset.  Shake it and you should hear the carbon granules inside if you listen closely.  If you don't, rap the capsule's sides gently on a solid surface to loosen the granules.  Transmitters are the weakest link on any old telephone set.

 

 

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Bell Telephone System 1957

 

 

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Bell System 1977

 

 

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[askolover]

I remember the Mickey Mouse phones!  I wanted one but at the time we didn't have touch tone at home.  It cost extra and my dad wouldn't switch.  Later in the 80's we did, but it wasn't truly a touch tone system I don't think because when a number was dialed quickly with the buttons, I could hear the clicks on the other end for a couple of seconds and I'd count them...they correlated with the number dialed.  Now it's all the real deal.

 

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That was called "Pulse" dialing. You would still have button dialing, but it mimicked the clicks generated by a regular dial phone. It was only slightly faster than dialing a rotary phone. I remember back in the late 1980's touch tone dialing was still not widely available in Germany and pay phones used "pulse" dialing.

 

[jakins]

OMG I just love my old phones

I have a few. I think they are as fun to collect as old appliances and the Husband does not complain as much. love my candle sticks, but even more I have 2 WE 102's with the 4H dial one is hooked to my x-link. also have a WE 202 and
2 WE 302's The best one That I think I have is my Rovafone from the 70's. First cordless phone still works also have a Porta-Call Trimline push button but Pulse dial cordless phone. My husband hates the cordless phones but I love it when someone comes to the house and goes wild over it. The X-link lets you connect to your cell phone and use antique phones via Bluetooth. it also supports rotary dialing.

 

[Ultramatic]

John...

 

 

Excuse me while I pick my jaw off the floor. What a great collection. I have never seen a Rovafone or a Porta-Call. And here I thought cordless phones came out around 1979. Those 102's are beautiful. And I agree about the husband complaints. The smaller the appliance, the less grumbling.

 

[rp2813]

Nice phones John! 

 

I do like the round base phones and they're less common than the oval base types.  My oval base is nearly identical to the one in your picture 4.  I have it connected to a minty 1931 subset, but for now it's all boxed up.  Do your E1 handsets still have their original transmitters?  I retrofitted mine to accommodate an F1 transmitter capsule and nobody on the other end of the conversation has any idea that I'm talking on a phone that's nearly 90 years old.

 

I may have to look into an X-link.  I'm beginning to receive more casual calls on my cell phone than I'd like, so being able to use a real phone as an alternative when I'm at home would make the whole experience more tolerable, even if it doesn't resolve the annoying lag time of wireless communication.

 

[Ultramatic]

Two pretty Touch Tone Princesses