Phone Thread

[countryford]

I've noticed that there are threads on almost anything, but I do not recall one on vintage phones. I'm just curious as to who else even has a landline phone, and then would like to see the vintage phones people have. I'll start with a few of ours. The first one we just acquired this past week. Its from the 30s and was made by the connecticut electric telephone. As you can see its all chrome. It still works.

 

[countryford]

This next one is a candle stick phone made by the american bell telephone company. It still works and it is made of brass.

 

[countryford]

This one is a wall crank phone. It has been in Steve's family for years. His grandparents used to have it in their dry cleaning business. It actually still works. When Steve was teenager he made it work on modern phone lines. He kept all the origianl parts, but just added a few parts. He added an external dial which I will post next.

 

[countryford]

the dial for the crank phone.

 

[autowasherfreak]

Nice vintage phones.  The lamp in the second pic is beautiful.

 

 

[fnelson487]

OK

Since I worked my way through high school and college working at the phone company at cord toll switchboards, how could I not be hooked on good old Bell Telephones (and AE and NE, etc. etc.)? First off, my Western Electric 556a manual auxilliary switchboard. Has ten manual station circuits, so we are good to go. Figured out the wiring including the AC and DC circuits - one for ringing and lights and one for voice. They just don't make them like this anymore.

 

[petek]

I have a few not quite so vintage phones, mostly 60's 70's. Slimline, Ericofon (one of my faves, with dial) A couple of Northern Electric chest phones a Princess dial, a GTE Starlite, a few Northern Electric Contempra's dial and button, Northern Electric Doodle dial phone iirc, numerous Northern Electric desk sets dial and button.. same as the Western Electric desk sets. Probably some others I can't remember boxed away.

 

[fnelson487]

Next

An original rose 302. Updated cords, but otherwise, all original. The phones on the first floor work through the switchboard.

 

[michaelman2]

Fred, Oh man...that is just too cool. I love old switchboards like this...and that you have a working situation is just the coolest thing I can imagine. I have an old board that has the toggle key switches in front of the cords, very similar to the old phone company boards. I too worked a cordboard in HS and college...We had a 608 and that was the last cordboard manufactured by Bell ....had "talk buttons" and auto ringing on the front cords..

 

[rp2813]

My Daily Driver

Is this 1950 Western Electric model 500.  This set was manufactured in October of 1950 during the first six months of a limited "soft launch" production period.  It most likely came from the factory with a straight handset cord but had a coiled cord on it when I got it.  All parts are dated 1950 except for the case and transmitter capsule, which are dated 1953, and cords are dated 1954 (mounting/line cord) and 1967 (handset cord).  Number card was on the first phone installed here by my parents in 1960 (a model 302), and the number has not been changed since so it still applies.  The phone is as found, just cleaned up a bit.

 

I have some older model 302 phones, an oval based D-1/202, and a 5302 set in service around the house as well, but for regular use IMO it's hard to beat the handset on a 500, so this one sits on my desk.  It has been stated that the model 500 may be the greatest piece of industrial design of the 20th century.  Indeed, they were everywhere, and they were indestructible. 

 

 

 

[retropia]

These are a couple of groovy Western Electric phones I keep handy for when our electricity is down, and I use them in place of the cordless phones for our one remaining land line.

 

[arbilab]

Wonderful phone phototrip. I thought we would be talking about smart phones. To me, a 'smart' phone is the one they give you free when you contract for service.

Would you believe, around age 12 I could operate that WE 556? Dad's office had one and since it was the only technical thing they had besides a tape teletype, I hung out there. I could operate the tape teletype too, AND read the code off the tape. Try THAT with your DVD!

 

[rp2813]

Some great phones here!  That rose 302 is stunning.  It appears that 302's in colors are a very hot commodity.

 

I also love that white Princess knock-off.  I've never seen one of those.  Does it have an evident model number on it anywhere?

 

Most of my phones are basic black, which is more or less my preference.  I do have a couple of colored phones, a brown simulated alligator rotary model and a green rotary Trimline.  I gave a beige 1959 500 model to a friend in a failed attempt to get him to install a land line so I wouldn't be dealing with transmission cutting out or being dropped altogether as is so often the case when contacting him on his cell phone.  You know who you are, young man!

 

Here's my D-1 with 202 wiring scheme.  All parts are 1931 or older except for the transmitter, which is 1936.  It sits on a night stand in the guest bedroom.  It works fine, has the loud and ancient sounding #4 dial and the early celluloid number plate.  The line number on the card would be valid for an existing exchange on the east side of town, and is likely in service somewhere over there.  The original E-1 handset is my favorite feature on this phone.  Again, just cleaned up from as-found condition.  The camera managed to capture every speck of dust.  The cleaning boy comes tomorrow . . .

 

 

 

 

 

[bugsyjones]

One of the primary reasons I have a land line at all is so I can make use of my rotary phones.

I have several but the one I like the best is a restored Automatic Electric model 40 with the chrome handset bands and chrome fingerwheel. Sooo art deco!

~Tim J.

 

[bugsyjones]

I also have a couple newer ones. A pink and a red Western Electric.

This pink one has the 4 prong plug.

~Tim

 

[bugsyjones]

And the red one.

~Tim

 

[rp2813]

The Handset

The reason the transmitter element on my D-1 oval base phone is dated later than 1931 is because I retrofitted the handset with the later F-1 style capsule developed with a look ahead to the 302 models that made their debut in 1937.  The original "bullet" type transmitters for these handsets were poor performers (the one for this phone was really bad) and as soon as the new F-1's were being produced in 1936, Western Electric began retrofitting E-1 handsets with them.  The result is transmission quality as good as on a modern phone that uses a carbon type transmitter capsule, without compromising the distinctive look of the "spit cup" mouthpiece.   People haven't a clue that I'm speaking to them on an 80 year-old instrument.  The 1931 receiver element provides perfectly acceptable reception quality.  Western Electric didn't see any need to upgrade that component with a retrofit for the companion element to the F-1 transmitter.

 

 

 

[rp2813]

My Oldest 302

This one is mostly vintage 1938.  It has a metal case.  It's very heavy.  Russel Crowe would have been up for murder if he had used one of these.  Currently mothballed because I've learned to love thermoplastic cases (no paint to chip for one thing), and the sound of a heavy bakelite handset making contact with one.  The basement jack serves such a phone, with straight black rubber jacketed handset cord as was commonly found on the black ones.

 

Another number card displaying what is probably a currently working line out of the Saratoga exchange nearby.

 

[rp2813]

Tim, you need to put some inserts into the number card holders on those 500's and cover up those spider clips!  Any plain card stock paper will do, or if you want you can make up your own.  For my 1950 phone when we lived at the other house, I made a period looking card with our alpha-numeric exchange and line number on it using Word and a font that best matched what was used during the period.  I even made the line number more of a gray color so it looked like it had been typed.  Printed on regular printer paper, and I used a heavier card stock behind it to give it some structure.

 

[rp2813]

A Favorite Of Mine

The 5302.  This was Ma Bell's coolest trick ever played on its subscribers. 

 

Outwardly, this phone appears to be your basic model 500, but it's not.  It's a model 302 masquerading as a 500.  After the 500 was launched, everybody wanted one.  Never before had a subscriber been able to adjust the ringer volume on their phone.  With numbers and letters placed outside the finger wheel, they didn't wear off with use.  These became must-have features for everyone who saw a 500, along with the ergonomically friendly, flat-spined G1 handset.  The problem was, there was a huge inventory of 302 models and Western Electric couldn't make the 500's fast enough to meet demand.  The solution was to make a new case for the 302 that resembled the 500's and to make a simple design change on the ringer that allowed it to be adjustable.  Ma Bell brought her legacy of recycling to a whole new level with this scheme.  All the electronic and mechanical components of a 302 were housed inside a 500 style case. 

 

The trained eye can spot a 5302, but most people don't even notice.  Here is a shot of my 5302, which is deployed in the den.  Nobody has a clue that they're using a phone whose technology dates back to 1936, but if you look closely there are differences.  In this shot, it's evident that the dial assembly is the size that would fit into a 302 case, and it's raised up slightly higher than the surrounding larger bezel which mimics that of the 500.  Also note that the handset cord enters the case at the rear like on the 302, not in the middle of the left side as on the 500.  Even the transmitter and receiver elements are the same as used on the 302 with the F-1 handset.

 

[rp2813]

Another Shot

The back of the 5302.  Note the stubby case.  The bump-out on the 500 case is more pronounced as opposed to the cut-off look of the 5302 case.  Also, the mounting/line cord exits the case in the middle as on a 302, not on the left corner like the 500.

 

Many 5302's were issued with the older F-1 style handset.  I think they look mismatched and prefer the look with the G-1 handset, which was designed for the 500's case.  The transmitter and receiver elements of the 500 would not work with the 302 chassis, so the G-1 handsets issued with the 5302's were retrofitted to accept the older style F-1 and HA1 transmitter and receiver elements designed for the 302.  And with that, one of the biggest industrial pranks on the consumer (and one of AT&T's shrewdest hardware moves ever) was guaranteed a flawless execution.

 

How can one not love this textbook example of yankee ingenuity?

 

 

 

[nashmaytagbear]

Wow

The phones you guys have are really cool. I have a bunch of old ones but don't have a place to display them. Most of them are unfortunately in boxes stored away. I still love to pick them up for next to nothing on our thrift store rounds every saturday. I have several GTE/Automatic electrics and several western electrics. Since I grew up with GTE I'm more partial to their line. I really like their versions of the princess line called starlite.

 

[arbilab]

We had Automatic/GTE in Denton TX (college town in an agricultural area) and in Honolulu. No problems with the phones themselves, but both systems were absolutely retarded. Dropped calls, routinely dialing twice because the first try didn't go through, deafening clicks when the other end picked up, you learned to hold it away from your ear until it went CLUNK.

 

[bugsyjones]

rp2813

I might put some insert cards in them. They both had crude inserts with typed phone numbers. I removed them.

I think it looks OK with some of the mechanism showing through the clear plastic fingerwheel.

~Tim J.[this post was last edited: 6/15/2011-17:23]

 

[nurdlinger]

I have a land line

I have to, it carries my DSL for internet. I own, but do not yet use, a 354 wall phone that I got because that's what we had at home when I was growing up. On eBay I bought a replacement backplate for it with a modular wall mount. I lost enthusiasm for the rewiring project, and so it still sits in pieces in my closet. As someone wise once observed, "it ain't gonna spoil", so one day I will get back to it.

 

[countryford]

Those are some cool looking phones. I really love the switchboard. I would love to have one.

 

[yogitunes]

Those are some great phones.....brings back memories of what phones used to be like compared to todays versions......

but WHAT!...no blinking RED BatPhone!

 

[mixfinder]

Paging pdub.............

Good Lord, Patrick has a whole working switch board and a cazillion phones.  Won't Miss Ernastine light up the threads with a few candid shots?

 

[58limited]

I can't find the close up pic (its here on the computer somewhere), but here is my 1935 American Telephone & Telegraph Co. candlestick with Western Electric bell box. It is hooked up and currently in use.

 

[whirlcool]

Didn't Ma Bell make a phone that had punched plastic cards you inserted into the phone for frequently dialed numbers? These were the wider office secretary type phones. I seem to remember something like that from the past. It seems that maybe around 1966-1970 or so?