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How to date an AE 80?

Started by HobieSport, July 17, 2009, 05:05:02 AM

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JorgeAmely

HobieSport:

Looks like 2-60 vintage with straight line ringer. No color code on the bottom stamp. If you take it apart, you can clean the inside with a brush and Oxyclean and all that crud from inside will come off. Perhaps a blast with compressed air will do the same also. I feel comfortable washing the inside with water all over the place. I usually leave it outside to dry well under the sun for half a day. By the time you put it together, all remnants of water are all gone and should work trouble free. The speaker and mike elements can cleaned with alcohol and a Q tip. No water inside these.

Jorge

HobieSport

#16
Thanks for the cleaning tips, Jorge.

I admit that I've never actually used Oxyclean before. I just thought it was a rather obnoxious TV advertisement. ;) Now it's on my shopping list.

I will never use water on the speaker and mike. I actually knew that one, even in my newbieness.

What interests me about this phone is that it's an Automatic Electric/Leich, and there was some pondering about the two companies collaborating, earlier in this thread.

Also, I've just been trying to learn how to date AE 80s in general.

(As it turns out this AE 80/Leich is only one month away from my dear Sisters' birthday, and our last name is "Leach". All mere coincidence of course. But my sister, being wiser than I, just wants one of my earlier 302s, birthday or not. I have a nice 1947 302 with her name on it.)
-Matt

AE_Collector

#17
Just found this old thread on dating AE phones and wanted to add a bit to it.

Yes AE 80's and Leich Electric 80's are the same. Leich Electric became GTE's first in house equipment manufacturing facility when GTE purchased Leich in November 1950. Automatic Electric had been owned by the Theodore Gary Company since 1919 but was not associated with GTE. On October 31, 1955 GTE Corporation merged with the Theodore Gary Company bringing Automatic Electric and Leich Electric together under GTE. So from 1955 until 1962 when Leich Electric was formerly merged into Automatic Electric, Leich Electric continued to produce its own phones but some were Automatic Electric models produced at Leich Electric's facilities.

As for dating AE phones, they were nowhere near as good at it as was WECo and NECo. In the era of the AE 40/50 (1939 through very late 1950's) these models are pretty hard to date. A significant change through the production time frame was the change from cloth to plastic insulated wiring inside of the phones and one day I want to work on narrowing down when that change occured.

Most AE 40's and 50's have several codes on the base. Some are easily deciphered to show ringer info but other aspects of some of these codes still remain a mystery.

By the introduction of the 80/90 (1954-1956 time frame) AE began to improve on dating the phones. Most of these early 80/90 models will have a date on the base, usually a 2 digit month and 2 digit year. Frequently there will also be other codes on the base indicating ringer type/frequency (SL or a 2 digit frequency number) or lack of ringer (xx).

By the early to mid 60's they had graduated to one or two long strings of numbers/letters on the bases indicating how the phone was equipped including dial plate, ringer, phone color, handset cord type and a DATE. If you see something like 10-67-05 on the base the first 2 digits are the month and the next two are the year, October 1967 in this example. The 05 doesn't represent a day but in some instances at least it appears to indicate a plant or shift.

See Paul-F's AE 80 color chart for more info on decipering the longer AE codes from the 1970's and 1980's.
http://www.paul-f.com/AEcolors.htm

By the era of the 80E and other later model plastic based models such as 182 Starlite Desk, 192 Starlite Wall, 981 Styleline Desk & 982 Styleline Wall, a date was frequently ink stamped onto the base sometimes being in a more conventional format such as Aug 12, 1977. I see a fair number of these ink stamps that are smudged beyond being able to completely decipher them however.

The 80E was introduced in 1975 however I have seen the old type 80's with metal bases dated in 1977.

By about 1988 Automatic Electric Company, after almost 100 years in business, ceased to exist so that is pretty much the latest date that you will find on an original Automatic Electric Telephone.  Automatic Electric Company was formed in 1901 but in 1908 it bought out the remnants of Strowger Automatic Exchange Company, inventors of the Automatic Dial system in the 1890's.

RIP AECo.

Terry

GG



I've had AE equipment around since the 70s and basically concluded that most of their material has no date code of any kind, with a few exceptions such as the 80E.  So it's good to see the collaboration here on moving toward some kind of chronological information. 

The long strings of digits on the base specify the options, as you said.  For example NC 802 000 CSA would be a type 80 with rotary dial in black with metropolitan (alphanumeric) dial markings, and a straight line ringer.  For the 80E, most of the same codes were kept except they started with HC.  I have AE info around that I could use to post the entire code for that generation of AE phones (80, 90, Starlite, Styleline, etc.). 

Early 80E (pre 1978 ish) has baseplate feet in which the soft rubber-like material is about the diameter of a 25-cent piece.  Later 80E, the baseplate feet are smaller and mounted in plastic domes like the one pictured in this or a related thread.  Eventually they got modular base cords.  They never got modular handsets though they did eventually use flat handset cord stock with the usual AE style strain reliefs.  On the last ones, the receiver cap does not have the AE-style holes arranged in a pentagon formation with one hole at the center, but instead has six larger holes similar to WE et. al. 

Occasionally you'll find 80E housings mounted on 80 baseplates, these being refurbs that you could consider as the GTE operating companies' latter-day answer to the 5302:-)  (There was another variation that was a very 5302-like housing designed to mount on a North Electric base (what I call a North 302 and y'all call a North Galion), that came with an AE 810 handset shell & dial parts.  I have one that was originally NOS but got damaged in shipping, sigh...)

The ringers used on 80E were an improvement in terms of ability to actually regulate ringer volume while maintaining consistent tone.  These can be mounted on 80 baseplates.  The dials were cheapened over the years; the last of them being IMHO "not very good."  The transmitters & receivers were always high quality, with excellent speech clarity.  The transmission networks were set up for slightly higher sidetone than on 500 sets, which I also find contributes to the perception of overall excellent audio quality. 

The weakest points on the 80 E were two: one, the cardboard facemats which are often found trashed due to liquid spills or abrasion; and two, the flexible plastic dial mounting that allows the dial to wiggle while dialing.  Fortunately, one solution solves both of these issues.  Take the facemat and cover it with clear self-stick Contact Paper on both sides, and then trim the edges so there is about 1 mm of contact paper around the outside and about 2 mm on the inside of the dial hole.  Be careful putting this back on the housing because it is thicker than original and, when the clear plastic faceplate is put back on top, will put the spring clip and mounting tab under a slight strain.  When reassembled, the 2 mm of plastic on the inside of the dial hole will prevent the dial from wiggling while dialing.  The modification is invisible when the phone is reassembled.  I have a few I've done this way.  You can do likewise for the Touch Calling (touchtone) version but trimming around the inside of 12 square holes is a pain in the rear. 

Aside from those two weak spots, the overall build quality of 80 E is about equal to that of the German type 611, which is a decently robust phone.