I think I scored a 5302 not sure.

[BDM]

I've always thought that the stick in the court house in Andy Griffith looked a bit out of place. It seems to me as though in the mid to late '50s, candlesticks would have been almost entirely out of use(although Bell did permit 151AL sticks to remain in service).

Actually, not true. In the 50s, and into the 60s many rural small town telephone companies still carried older equipment. While I would bet 95% of the stick phones were gone by 1960, it's still era correct if you get down to the nitty-gritty. Of course that old phone is supposed to give you the feeling of old fashioned home town type people.

Look at my great grandmother, who kept her D1/202 style phone in the same house since the 1930s. She died never having owned a phone any more modern than a 354 wall phone. This is right in the heart of a major city, Detroit. With the main exchange right around the corner from her. Plus, well into the touch-tone era.

[Bill Cahill]

Talking about hybrids, Radios especially Pre, and Post WWII radiois, will have the same cabinets. Totally different chassis.

D/P

I can swear to that. I have two totally different model  Bendix table radios, ca 1947.
They both use the exact same bakelite case. One is a two band, six tube radio that the chassis is a basket case.
The other is an AM only  with a three gang tuner. The case was broken, and, chipped.
I had case for junker proffessionally re painted. I am putting the AM only chassis in it. That chassis is mint.
Bill Cahill

[bingster]

Look at my great grandmother, who kept her D1/202 style phone in the same house since the 1930s. She died never having owned a phone any more modern than a 354 wall phone. This is right in the heart of a major city, Detroit. With the main exchange right around the corner from her. Plus, well into the touch-tone era.

Not to go on about this, but repairmen were told to try to replace any out of date equipment they encountered in their daily travels.  BUT... If the subscriber insisted that their telephone not be changed, the repairmen were instructed to honor the subscriber's wishes and leave the phone in place.  So those who were used to their old phone and didn't want to change it, could have kept it indefinitely. 

Of course it's also the case that many subscribers' telephones never needed repair, and not having a repairman out to even try to replace the equipment, it would have remained, too.

[McHeath]

My folks lost their rotary phones in 84' when Pacific Telesis came out to install the RJ-11 plugs.  Mom claims that they told her she could not keep her rotarys, but I dunno, they may have simply pulled them and told her she was getting a deal, she's not all that forceful about such things.

[bingster]

I think all bets were probably off in 1984.  That was the year everything changed.

[BDM]

Bing, that's probably how most survived way beyond their service life. The subscriber never called in for service. I would imaging my great grandmother never called for service. She rarely used the phone anyhow.

[andre_janew]

My grandmother always had an overhead phone line.  She never got her line buried.  She never complained about being the only one in the neighborhood with an overhead line.  The phone always worked and that is what mattered the most to her.

[Dan/Panther]

I re-read this thread this morning, it was kind of embarrassing,  I didn't know what a 5302 was.

D/P

[WEBellSystemChristian]

I re-read this thread this morning, it was kind of embarrassing,  I didn't know what a 5302 was.

D/P

That's nothing; in my first post, I thought an early Green 500 with a Gray cord was really Med Blue painted Green!

[TelePlay]

I re-read this thread this morning, it was kind of embarrassing,  I didn't know what a 5302 was.

Well, that was in 2008. Everyone learns on this site, it one way or another, about this, that and the other thing even short periods of time, much less close to 8 years ago.

I think it is safe to say we all, except for a very few, have an embarrassing post or two or more on this forum. 

[Greg G.]

This made me go back and find my first post in the Introductions area.  I didn't know how to determine the manufacture date on a 500.  I had two phones at that time.  I'm at around 100 now and losing count, and I still have those first two phones!

[Jim Stettler]

That's nothing; in my first post, I thought an early Green 500 with a Gray cord was really Med Blue painted Green!

I actually have one of those.
Jim S.

[WEBellSystemChristian]

I actually have one of those.
Jim S.

Really? Have pictures?

[Jim Stettler]

I'll have to find the camera . I took the phone to the KS show so it is in a box in the dining room.

Grey handset cord and a long brown cloth line cord, Green dial.  At one time I thought I found a reference  that justified the cloth cord. I have never been able to locate the reference again.

Jim S.

[poplar1]

As for your brown cord, what is the date on the strain relief? If several years older than the phone, it's possible that the installer reused the existing cord on a 302, rather than move furniture to get to the 42A connecting block.

I have a 10-57 matching dates 500, aqua blue, with aqua blue handset cord and long gray mounting cord. I'm guessing that it was the long cord that the installer had on his truck. Or, perhaps, long cords in aqua were not yet available. 

Several of us have painted aqua blue 500s that were originally Mediterranean blue: the housings are Med. blue inside, and the dials are coded 7C-57. I'm guessing that they used up "obsolete" stock to make these, installing of course new aqua blue cords and new aqua blue dial number plate. (Can't recall about the handset, but it, too, may have been originally med. blue.) These phones don't have refurb dates, as I recall, so I wonder if they were sold as "new."

When "telco property" phones were given back to WE, so that they could be remanufactured, they could be reissued in whatever color the local telco needed. So, phones were painted black that might have red, pink, yellow, or whatever color underneath, even a mixture of former colors.

There do seem to be, for example, other examples where the painted color matches the original, even in the late 50s. (I have a yellow soft plastic one like this.)

In the 80s or 90s, they seemed to match the  existing colors when painting old parts, more often than not.