Number PULEAZE! Part Two:

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In 1954, there were very few phones in service that weren't black, a huge number that were older re-re-re-recycled models like the 302, and a significant number of even older recycled D1 (often called the "202") oval based models as well.  We had a black D1 phone (installed in 1949, twelve years after the 302 was introduced) until 1960 when we moved.  The phone installed at the next house was a black 302 with a straight handset cord.  This was some six years after the ad directly above ran, and ten years after the model 500 went into production.

 

IMO, the ad promotes a phone that wasn't available to all subscribers.  It even shows it with a coiled handset cord, which still wasn't all that common in 1954 either, particularly in a matching color.  A classic case of the right coast being the center of the corporate universe back then.
 
Ralph, I think the main reason we didn’t see many colored phones or curly handset cords then was because they cost EXTRA, EVERY mo. on your bill from Ma Bell. Extensions cost extra too. So, to pay just the initial base monthly fee, that meant one black desk set or wall phone with a regular, straight handset cord.

When we moved in 1958 we had two beige desksets, one in the entry hall, near the kitchen and the other in my parents bedroom.

Some people purchased plastic covers for their phones in different colors, but the handset cords and wall cords stayed the same generic black. One of my Aunts had a Red cover she bought at Macy’s.

Eddie
 
Also, look at how much Long Distance calls cost in 1954. People were very brief with their LD calls then, and also, didn’t make LD calls at the drop of a hat. If you were living on a tight budget, you had to be careful with your phone usage. Now, most everyone has free LD within the country with their basic phone service, if they even have a Landline anymore..
Eddie
 
For sure, Eddie.  The extra cost just wasn't worth it for the average subscriber.  But, I'd bet money that if you wanted a color-coordinated 500 set from Pacific Telephone in 1954, there would be a waiting period because they didn't have them on hand.  Even black 500s were in short supply until the early '60s around here.  Unless you really insisted, you got a 302, or maybe a 5302, which was just a 302 disguised as a 500 and retrofitted with a wonky ringer adjusting lever. 

 

In the early-mid '50s Ma Bell even gave specific orders to provisioning and installation personnel to issue a 302 unless the customer insisted on a more modern set.  The 302s were beyond plentiful, while WECo's production of 500s couldn't keep up with demand.  There is a two word explanation for this:  ringer adjustment.

 

We only used Long Distance on special occasions.  I remember many family celebrations around our dining room table when the phone would ring.  I'd answer it and hear a very loud, hollow, low pitched sort of hissing/roar, and the excitement ensued.  I knew it was my Uncle Frank calling from suburban Chicago.  The phone would get dragged to the table and passed around for everyone to have a chance to talk.
 
hear a very loud, hollow, low pitched sort of hissing/roar

Sounds like the sound of a long distance call setup over microwave relay to me! I’ve listened to many Evan Doorbell recordings and the sounds of the telephone system in those days was nothing short of fascinating, and you could figure out what was what too just by the sound you heard.
 
For a couple years post high-school I worked as a market research interviewer. We called on surveys ranging from soup to nuts...one long survey we had was calling into the farm country (if I remember, it was for ivermectin livestock wormer...). It was very interesting hearing the CO to CO handoffs and the re-generation of dial pulses as the call traversed the network. Only after working in telecom for my career do I understand the whys and wherefores....this also coincided with a Bell System strike, so we would call and tie up a directory assistance operator (manager filling in) for an hour getting all the numbers we might possibly want while the subs were in place.
 
Eddie, the ad with the "servant" plugging in the portable phone speaks to your remarks above about the cost of having an extension.  Even the "portable" telephone option would incur an expense for installing jacks where desired.  The image in that 1929 ad likely depicted a pre-crash household.
 
I noticed this too Ralph. Also, the ad suggests that the telephone extensions could be used like an intercom throught out the home. This is a first for me. I guess their must have been some kind of internal bell system to alert occupants the someone in the home had a message to relay?

The ad also suggests that customers have more than one telephone line in the home. Only the well heeled could have entertained this as an option.

Back when I got my first phone most of the economically challenged just had a 25 ft. cord installed so they could carry the phone from room to room and avoid the extra monthly charge for an extension.

I agree with you Ralph, this ad was surely a pre Crash ad, but a great window into the times.

Eddie
 
Ringer Box

I notice the 1929 ad said nothing about the ringer. Didn't all phones of that era require a separate ringer box for each phone? And how much would those cost to install in each room you wanted?
 
The 1929 Bell System ad is obviously one targeted to a more affluent audience. It most likely appeared in magazines purchased mainly by upper-class ladies.

I would think the subset including ringer would have been mounted to the wall where the maid is plugging in the cord. In a fancy installation, it may well have been recessed into the wall with a grill over it.

As for the intercom feature, there would have been equipment somewhere in the building to provide power, amplification, and signalling for that service. I was in an old house when I was a kid that had such a system at one time. It had long been disconnected by then. An old wall phone was still mounted in a back hallway, and I remember there being some type of switch next to it to select between outside and inside lines. I also remember a lot of old phone wires, and some boxes and connections fastened to a wooden panel in the basement.

My Aunt Doris had intercom on her phones, but that was part of the 1a2 system they had installed in the 70's, which also had two outside lines.

We only had one line, but also an extension in the basement. When we moved into the house in Aug. 1957, my parents had most of the interior of the house repainted. The living room, dining room and hall were painted light gray, so when the phone was installed, my mom chose one in gray - an AE model 80. That was AE's version of the WE 500. The old phone - an AE model 40 in black - was moved to the basement. I always though it was much better looking than the 80. It eventually was replaced with a wall phone, and the phone guy took it away. I found out later on that he had a wonderful collection of older AE phones, which I imagine our old one was among.
As for other color phones, the public library a couple blocks away had an AE 80 in light green.
 
<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I suppose the silhouette of a falling  body outside that window would have helped narrow down the advertisement's 1929 date even more.</span>
 
When I was a teenager and we first moved to the Northern California Coast we had a 5 party line, yes FIVE. Our ring was 1 long and 1 short and our number was Russian Gulch #3.

To place a call you lifted the receiver and the operator would come on the line and you requested the number you wished to call. If it was someone else on the party line you could of course hear their ring in your house too. And you knew they answered just like any other call, when they came on the line.

When I turned 13 my Mom was in Brooklyn, visiting my stepfathers sister. It took her over an hour to convince an operator there that you really could call such a number as Russian Gulch #3, they all thought Mom was either drunk, crazy or both, until she finally got a supervisor that believed her. They had to get the Santa Rosa, Calif.operator on the line to ring down our number, and this was 1964.

Eddie
 
Eddie, a per a friend of mine in Napa, people living there still had to dial an operator for Long Distance up until around 1980.

 

 
 
Ralph, in 1971 the area where my Mom lived went to dial phones, the last area in Sonoma Co. to finally get dial service, but any direct dialed LD still went thru CAMA for billing. This was so for all areas of Sonoma Co., except Santa Rosa, until about 1980. At that time CAMA was retired and all direct dialed LD went thru without any operator assistance.

For those that don’t know what CAMA was, it is an acronym for Centralized Automated Message Accounting. It was a board in the main traffic office that the direct dialed LD calls reached, where an operator came on the line and announced, “Your number please”. The caller gave their number, which was keyed in by the CAMA operator and then the call when thru the switching system to be connected. The number was of course keyed in so the caller could be billed for the call. While I was an operator I spent many hours on CAMA, a virtually mindless job.

Eddie
 
My Grandparents didn't get "Dial Service" until 1967.  The phone was a plain black phone with no dial at all.  When you picked up the receiver a central operator would ask you for "Number Please" If you wanted to make a long distance call you would say "Long Distance" and she would transfer you to another operator that took care of the long distance calls.

Their number was 328.  

 

Bob
 
Well, if I didn't feel old already, the most recent replies here would have certainly done the trick.

 

I'm not anti-progress, but the the abandonment of analog systems -- and not just by Ma Bell --  has sure taken all of the fun out of things.
 
Ralph,

these posts help us all to remember that there once was a time that a telephone call was somewhat special, not something that was screened for potential scams. Fifty years ago it was pretty much unheard of for anyone to be using the telephone to defraud the public on a mass scale.

Now, I almost never answer the phone when it rings, and only if I recognize the number and/or the caller. In my youth it would have been unheard of to not answer the phone when it rang. My how times have changed!

Eddie
 
" Now, I almost never answer the phone when it rings, and only if I recognize the number and/or the caller. In my youth it would have been unheard of to not answer the phone when it rang. My how times have changed! "

Boy you said it Eddie.

I was just this morning talking to a friend about how you would Love when the phone rang and the anticipated tone of the "Hello" as to "Who is this calling" would be so nice.

Now you get aggravated every time the phone rings especially when you don't recognize the number.

I remember also there was a time when you got home and you had a list of calls to make so you had the Long Cord on the wall phone so you could start supper with the phone wedged under your chin. Quite the balancing act and coordination to pull off dinner with two hands while talking.

Fun Times back then.
 
Now That’s Pathetic!

these kids are old enough to be able to reason out that each hole on the dial corresponds to the numbers that need to be dialed. Common sense would dictate that you would need to pull the dial to the stop for each number dialed. Wow, they can probably figure out the most complex issues with a computer,but a simple, old fashioned dial telephone stumps them! Almost makes me wonder if they know which end is up?

Eddie
 
Wow Eddie -- those kids likely haven't ever watched an old movie or TV show, or didn't care about scenes that captured someone dialing an outbound call.

 

I've yet to connect any of my old rotary phones at our new house, but that day is coming.
 
Telephone Instruments As Intercoms

I just went back and looked at the extension phone ad.  How exactly would an intercom system work when the telephone set(s) had no dial, such as the one pictured in the ad?  Some sort of Morse-inspired use of the switch/receiver hook?
 
As I get older and see stuff like these two boys that can't dial a phone I get very afraid.

(And feel Old) ; )

Why would they watch an old movie ? No Sex, Violence and Blood. Better to play Call of Duty or what ever the hell they play these days.

A story line ? Boy meets Girl ? A Love story ? Nah.
 
 

 

Indeed. It is frightening the level of ignorance some of our youth have. I remember a skit on the Tonight Show years back where they asked college students very simple questions on current events, history, geography, etc.. Their answers were invariably incorrect, some shockingly so. Oh sure, the audience was laughing, but me? I was screaming inside. This is our nations future. God help us.
 

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