Garage sale Red Bar

[Waterland]

Having finally secured a proper Monday through Friday position at my place of work, I now have weekends free to go out hunting at garage sales and estate sales.  My first garage sale trip of the season rewarded me well.  As I was looking at garage sale listings on my local craigslist, one ad had a picture with a phone in the foreground.  I immediately recognized it as a Kellogg Red Bar.  I made it my mission to be the first one at that sale as soon they opened to grab the phone. 

The sale started at 10:00 AM and we arrived at a quarter to as they were still bringing boxes of stuff out.  As I was walking through the sale I saw a 302 in poor condition which I passed on since my mission was to secure the Red Bar.  I talked to the guy setting up stuff and mentioned that I had seen a Kellogg telephone in his ad and asked if it was still available.  He said, "oh yeah, good eye, I think it's in a box here somewhere."  He dug a little and sure enough came up with the Red Bar.  I ended up paying $40 for it since he seemed to know what he had, but I still think that's a good price for a Red Bar, especially one in the condition this one is in.  As I was waiting for the guy to find the phone, I recognized one of the sellers from a monthly occasional sale I frequent sort of lurking behind me.  After I had paid for my Red Bar he came up to me and said he recognized me from his sale and commented on my nice phone.  I said, "yeah, it's in really nice shape and you don't see these for sale that often."  He then admitted that he had come to the sale specifically for the Red Bar just as I had, presumably to resell at his sale.  So I'm glad I was diligent and made sure to be there as early as possible because otherwise the other guy would have got it and I would have ended up having to pay twice as much at his sale for it.

Attached are some pictures of the phone when I got it home.  It's in really nice shape, it even has the original dial card with no number written on it.  The fingerwheel is crooked and has some wear on the holes, but the action is very smooth.  It dials out and rings in just fine.  I did notice though that it is much quieter than my WE 410 which I am currently using as my main phone; is this common to the Red Bar, or is my receiver damaged?  My wife did comment that I was cutting out a bit when I called her from it, so there may be an issue with the transmitter as well.  The coiled handset cord is still very tight and not stretched out and kinked, and there is a modern gray line cord.  I'd like to swap out the gray line cord for a more era appropriate one, would it have had the solid black rubber cords, or brown cloth covered cords?

[LarryInMichigan]

That phone looks very nice.  Many or most of these have broken corners.  I have had a terrible time with the Kellogg transmitters.  Most of mine sound bad, and some generate static.  Also, at least some of my Kellogg receivers are a bit weak on volume.  You should remove your transmitter and receiver elements and make sure that the contacts are clean and tight.

Larry

[Waterland]

This one is in really nice clean condition, no broken corners, not even a crack in the case; someone took really good care of it.  How can I adjust the fingerwheel so that it's in the proper orientation?

[LarryInMichigan]

The dial was made by AE or is a copy of the AE.  There are instructions around here somewhere on how to remove an AE dial center.

Larry

[BDM]

That phone looks very nice.  Many or most of these have broken corners.  I have had a terrible time with the Kellogg transmitters.  Most of mine sound bad, and some generate static.  Also, at least some of my Kellogg receivers are a bit weak on volume.  You should remove your transmitter and receiver elements and make sure that the contacts are clean and tight.

Larry

Nice catch but I agree. I have several of these (plastic and metal bodies). I actually have a small box full of the Kellogg transmitters I once went through for a decent sounding one. I finally settled on a few but none of my Kellogg's sound as good as the W.E. or A.E. equivalents as Larry has stated. I have my Redbars stored away but if I remember correctly, the dial centers come off the same way as any A.E. Or is my memory failing me?

P.S. thinking at one point I had a bad network in the phone, I wired in an A.E. 41 handset. The Redbar sounded great with that handset. I knew from that point on, the Kellogg non positional transmitters were junk IMHO. But, nice looking phones. Still a favorite of mine

[BDM]

Waterland, quick link to the 1000 brochure.

http://www.strombergcarlsontelephone.com/kellogg/PDF/1947_BRCH_1000_XRAY.pdf


Really is a nicely built piece of equipment. Just those darn transmitters