Classic Rotary Phones: Repair, Refurbish, Restore Vintage Telephones

This post may (or may not) be the first in a series of articles comparing the Western Electric models 302 and 500, the undisputed champs of 20th Century telephony. Those of you who are old enough, and were paying attention, are liable to recall that electrical/mechanical gadgets got smaller over the past 50 years or so. Radios, once the size of refrigerators, shrunk down to breadbox size, and then to something resembling a cigarette pack. Television experienced a similar reduction, if not in over-all size, then at least in the screen-to-cabinet ratio. The first half of the century also witnessed progressive size reduction among telephone sets. But that trend came to a halt in 1949 when the Model 500 was announced. The 500 was noticeably larger than its predecessor, the 302, and this curious size increase is today’s topic.Before continuing, we should confirm that the 500 is indeed the larger of the two phones:

Handset length: 302- 9″, 500- 8¼”
Housing length: 302- 7½”, 500- 9″
Housing width (minus handset): 302- 5″, 500- 5″
Height: 302- 5¼”, 500- 4¾”

Well, isn’t this interesting! The G1 handset of the 500 is smaller than the F1 found on the 302 (a surprise to no one) and the 500 is also half an inch lower in height. (handsets on cradles, measured to highest point of the handsets) But the 500 is larger than the 302 in the most significant area, the footprint. The width of the cases are identical (although the 500 looks wider), but the additional length of the 500 translates into a substantial 7½ square inch gain, over 16%. Why did the redesign result in a larger phone? The new internals certainly didn’t necessitate such a change. One could argue that the new base-mounted dial may have complicated the layout, but I don’t buy into that notion. Then why is the 500 bigger? Beats me. C’mon, you weren’t expecting definitive answers here, were you? This is a blog after all, where ego-centric types rant incoherently between therapist visits.
But I’m not going to leave you without tossing out a really interesting theory I’ve come up with. The 500 was designed at the outset of the economic growth that followed WWII, when some of the outward displays of affluence, namely cars and homes, were getting larger. What was flashier than a shiny new car? A big shiny new car! Same with telephones. The size increase was, I feel, a styling exercise. It was an effort to give the consumer more. I’m going to take this bold hypothesis a step further and state flatly that, were the model 500 designed in 1959 instead of ‘49, it would have had tail fins. Oh, if only. . .