Three Phones Found at Antique Mall

[Alex G. Bell]

The dial is an ITT Type 30 dial, dated 3-82.  It would be interesting to know if these various components were Signal Corps/phone company refurbs/ repairs, or if someone just assembled a Frankenphone from a box of parts?

I'd guess that it's probably impossible to ever know in the affirmative.  Even if you were able to find out that Signal Corps used S-C parts for maintenance (entirely plausible), you still would have no way to know for a fact that they did it.

The government sells off huge lots of new and used phones.  It could have been purchased as part of a lot by any commercial refurbisher, telephone company or private individual on it's way to its final destiny: you!

[mentalstampede]

I don't remember AE using those round feet with concentric rings on the bottom.  ISTR those being WE or ITT feet.   Anyone remember? Maybe it was refurbed.

Both of my AE 80s have those feet.

[Alex G. Bell]

Both of my AE 80s have those feet.

Interesting.  Thanks.

The only AE 80-series set that comes to mind that I can get to easily is a green 85.  It has the feet I remember: black quarter circles with the point at the corner where the two flat sides of the quarter meet cut off at 45º.  It's perhaps relatively late production since it has a satin silver line cord. 

That may be the work of a refurbisher since the ends of the jacket are green, so the cord appears to have been painted satin silver, as I know for a fact WE distribution houses did during refurb.  I've intended to remove the paint to restore it to matching the rest of the phone but never gotten around to it.

Do you know anything about the history of your 80 sets?

[AE_Collector]

The 80 feet are correct. Early 80 sets had the weird shaped feet that were like flat slabs of hard rubber. The feet changed to even smaller diameter circles on the plastic based "E" series 80's.

7-68-4 on the AE80 is July 68. The 4 doesn't represent a part of the date code but apparently an assembly line.

Terry

[Ed Morris]

Thanks to all for all the information on the S-C.

I took a closer look at the yellow WE last night.  I saw that the red lead from the ringer had been disconnected from L2.  Re-attached it, and the the ringer now works.  A clean and polish and it should be ready to use.

I will check out the AE today.

[Ed Morris]

Today I finished the cleaning and polishing of the yellow WE 500.  It is now our bedside phone.  If the image appears sideways, click or tap on the image below to view it in portrait orientation.  I didn't realize it would upload in landscape mode.

[Ed Morris]

Finally, the third of my antique mall finds is finished.  It polished up nicely with Novus #2.  The AE 80 works fine, except the ringer is a 50 Hz ringer.  Since I probably won't use the phone on a regular basis, I'm going to leave it as is.  If I run across a 20 Hz ringer for an AE 80, I may swap it out.  Shown in first photo below.

Also two photos of the finished Stromberg-Carlson/WE500 Frankenphone.  When I removed the finger wheel from the SC, I found the dial card had been turned over.  The backside looks like it might be the original military dial card.  I decided to use it when I re-installed the finger wheel.