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Two-Tone Green GPO 746, with a difference...

Started by twocvbloke, November 08, 2012, 04:45:28 PM

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twocvbloke

And I'm willing to bet someone else on here was bidding on it aswell, making it more pricey for me!!! :D

Anyway, won this phone this evening, it looks to be a GPO 746 (labelling or stamps on the base are missing), lovely 2-tone green of course, and you're probably wondering "Well? What's the difference?"...... ;D

It's a pretty uncommon version which comes with something familiar to most american collectors, a ringer volume control!!! :D

I am actually kicking myself, as when it last ended on ebay at the weekend, I was actually sat here waiting for the auction to finish, then I got distracted by youtube, and I only realised 2 minutes after it ended, and I could have been the only bidder, so, yeah, definitely a self-kicking error there... ::)

Anyway, obligatory pics & ebay link, and a pic borrowed from www.telephonesuk.co.uk to show the ringer control inside the phone... :)
(and no, I don't know how it works!!! :D )

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321018054740

LarryInMichigan

It looks like it controls the amount of clapper movement allowed.  What will those Brits think of next ;)

Larry

twocvbloke

Quote from: LarryInMichigan on November 08, 2012, 05:01:00 PM
It looks like it controls the amount of clapper movement allowed.  What will those Brits think of next ;)

Larry

If only we thought to steal, I er mean License the ringer control style as used in WE phones... :D

gpo706

My concorde blue 746 turned up with one of these sticking out the front, wasn't even flagged up on the ebay ad, great surprise!
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

twocvbloke

It's nice when you get a surprise like that, a feature missed by the seller... ;D

My only concern about this phone is the end of the line cable, I'm not sure if it's had the snip (I hate it when people cut off wires!) or if the 4 wires are just tucked under with the rest of the cable, I've been wondering that since I first saw it, so it's been a bit of a concern, but, even if they're snipped it's not the end of the world, as I can always replace it or at worst use it to crimp on a BT plug, just have to wait and see... :D

Oh, forgot to mention this, I also bought a T-bar wall bracket last month for a lot less than some sellers are offering them for:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251170355215

Took me a while to figure out that the feet had to come off the phone to fit it... :D

Tom B

16 bricks is a good price for a standard 746 - good score!
Tom

twocvbloke

Quote from: Tom B on November 09, 2012, 04:16:19 PM
16 bricks is a good price for a standard 746 - good score!

Would have been better had I bid at the weekend and got it or £10... :D

david@london

#7
as this is a buy-it now .................................a green 706 near-lookalike phone, ...but without volume adjuster..... i have one identical to this ...[one of the first classsic phones i bought,.. about 5 years ago, in leiston, suffolk] ................mine has a clacton-on-sea dial card though...

http://tinyurl.com/av2arfe


twocvbloke

I want to get a two-tone green 706 at some point, though preferably with the right dial on it (green chevron fingerplate and a green (or chromed) fingerwheel), and of course, unconverted, cos I like the originals better... :D

Hopefully though the 746 will be here in a couple of days...  ;D

david@london

#9
this is an original dial though,......must be an alternative version..........706L...?

mine is 1961, with that exact dial, no chevrons.

http://tinyurl.com/bazqq4e




twocvbloke

706F phones were fitted out with the plain dial ring and the clear fingerwheel & silvered all figure fingerplate, presumably as different exchanges were transitioning from lettered dialling to numbered dialling... :)

By original, I mean one which has the letters & numbers on the ring and the coloured or chromed steel fingerwheel (the metal ones were very early), though I'm sure getting hold of a 1959 model would be tough, it's what I want... :)

twocvbloke

Yay!!! It's arrived!!! ;D

Bad points, the line cable has had the snip, so the terminal block end is wireless, and halfway up the cable there is a break in the outer sheathing, aswell as some other damage, so, like it's newly adopted green brother, it looks like it'll be a conversion phone, so I need to buy the conversion kit from the seller I got the last green conversion kit from, and the base looks like it's either been sat on very hot cables, or someone used it as a soldering iron stand, it's only cosmetic though, and the dial is the usual case, bit sluggish cos it needs a bit of a clean and a lube job... :D

But other than that, it's great, needs a good cleaning and maybe a bit of a polish, came with three dial cards, two with the same number, the third having a different number, the handset cable is nice and tight, seems a bit smaller than on my other greenie, but it's probably cos it was made in a different factory... :)

And the ringer adjuster, odd arrangement, feels rather flimsy to be honest, but does have an amusing feature of having an E.T. face on it, which is kind of funny cos BT used E.T. in some of their ads to proudly announce having the Extra Technology for something that I can't recall (probably ADSL)...  ;D

Oh, one more thing, this is the first 746 I've had that has still got it's case screw retaining nut!!! Those usually have fallen out a long time ago... :D

Anyway, pictures, I'll show more as I pull the phone apart... :)

twocvbloke

#12
Well, I've pulled it apart, cleaned it up, freed up the dial (and boy was that suffering from gummed up oil, it seized up as I was testing it!!), haven't tried polishing cos I only have Peek polish to hand, and it has a few scratches here and there (ignoring the damage to the base!!) that need sanding out, if I was bothered to do so...  :P

Anyway, the ringer control is pretty simple, push the lever to the far left and you have full volume, and you have two clicks to the right to gradually lower the volume, and loosening a screw on the top of the frame of the device adds a Mute position, saving the need for a Bell On/Off switch on the top of the phone, handy, but I've not tried it to see how the varied volume levels sound, need to rewire it as I haven't reconnected anything yet... :D

The dial like I say was gummed up, it was clean though, just the old oil had completely turned to goo and made the whole thing lock up as I was seeing if it had any play in the fingerwheel shaft, the worst bit of gumming was the spring, and releasing said spring (was being careful, honest!!!) resulted in it popping out and cutting my bottom lip, only a small nick though, still, after a good de-gunking and fresh oil in strategic places, it's all free and fast again... :)

And cos I could, I have taken a few pics of the two meanie greenies, which also shows the difference between the Mk1 and Mk2 cases with the hook designs... :)

twocvbloke

Well, all wired up, rings fine (even with a partial conversion, haven't got a 3.3k resistor yet for the 1kOhm ringer coil), not sure about it's dial rate but it's about the same as it's older counterpart, so within tolerance I'm sure... :)

I used the damaged line cable to connect it up, I carefully removed the grommet from the terminal block end (cos it could be useful later) and stripped back the outer sheathing and eventually got a BT plug on it, albeit with the blue & green reversed (so Green is now the bell wire and blue is Earth, which it was anyway before the BT standards changed them round!!) and wired it up as per conversion standards, minus the resistor, and it works, the transmitter is crackly as heck, but most of them are anyway, and I have a couple of spare 21A transmitters to hand so can easily replace it... :)

Now, it's age, I think given that the dial is 1980, the Transmitter '81, and the receiver '79, I'd guess it's a 1981 build at the earliest, it's just a shame it's missing the info labels on the base, but, I guess someone liked peeling labels off of their phones... :-\

twocvbloke

#14
The number cards are confusing, on one hand the 01-673 (or 675 on the other two) are London director area numbers, but on the other, they could also be Irish numbers...  ???

Confusing.... :D

Still looking about though... :)