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1993 GTE Branded 2500 clone

Started by allnumbedup, July 13, 2022, 11:16:45 PM

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allnumbedup

I took some internal and base pictures of this nineties 2500 I recently restored after I purchased it in a lot of five phones.  Its GTE branding looks out of place on this 2500 clone.  I don't understand how this model fits into the Automatic Electric time line.  It has a tone/pulse switch, the ringer type with a ball bearing in place of a clapper, and direct contacts in place of anything like a hookswitch mechanism. 
Analog Phones for a Digital World

Jim Stettler

I think it is made by Cortelco with GTE plastics.
 The base sticker looks like a variation of the Cortelco sticker.

My guess is GTE ordered them so they could offer a 2500 consumer set.
It probably came in a nicely printed box and you could buy it at a department store.

Jim
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

allnumbedup

Makes sense and thank you. Here is an image of another one--manufactuered four years earlier--with clunky small GTE logos centered in a blank field that has an imprinted code on the bottom that looks to be ITT style versus the Cortelco style sticker of the 90's.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1204992898/new-old-stock-nos-ivory-gte-model-2500
Analog Phones for a Digital World

Stormcrash

Best I can tell sometime after the mid 1980s GTE wound down Automatic Electric telephone production and began buying GTE branded standard sets from other manufacturers. I've seen GTE branded "slimline" (Trimline clone) phones as well as GTE branded 2500 sets. I've seen them marked/marketed for the lease market but I suspect they were sold at retail as well. Actually if you look on YouTube for a GTE rental commercial you'll see all the phones in it are standard clones of WECo designs.

Tone/Pulse switchable was a feature that started showing up around the same time in the mid/late 80s to both simplify production/inventory and to satisfy the need for touch tone navigation of phone tree systems or other automated inward services even from subscribers on pulse lines

MMikeJBenN27

Quote from: Stormcrash on July 14, 2022, 03:03:19 PMBest I can tell sometime after the mid 1980s GTE wound down Automatic Electric telephone production and began buying GTE branded standard sets from other manufacturers. I've seen GTE branded "slimline" (Trimline clone) phones as well as GTE branded 2500 sets. I've seen them marked/marketed for the lease market but I suspect they were sold at retail as well. Actually if you look on YouTube for a GTE rental commercial you'll see all the phones in it are standard clones of WECo designs.

Tone/Pulse switchable was a feature that started showing up around the same time in the mid/late 80s to both simplify production/inventory and to satisfy the need for touch tone navigation of phone tree systems or other automated inward services even from subscribers on pulse lines
That's what I figured the first few times I saw these.  Thought they would be the same inside though.

Mike

markosjal

That "made in USA sticker on bottom is typical of ITT made in USA stickers where was it Tennessee or something?
Phat Phantom's phreaking phone phettish

MMikeJBenN27

Quote from: markosjal on August 02, 2022, 04:17:24 AMThat "made in USA sticker on bottom is typical of ITT made in USA stickers where was it Tennessee or something?
Corrinth, Mississippi.

Mike