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I bought a telephone off ebay

Started by persido, March 08, 2014, 10:13:22 AM

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JimH

#15
What hurts the most is most of these are collector telephones.  Here's one I still have in the box.  I sent pictures to the seller and was lucky enough to get a full refund.  Anyone have a beige ten button 1554 shell?
Jim H.

Dennis Markham

Strange how these examples are all Light Beige.  Better order extra packing for Beige.  I've got some photos somewhere of a Light Beige that was destroyed.  I think we had a thread about this in the past.


twocvbloke

Maybe the beige colour plastic was more brittle than other colours, either that or it's just pure coincidence that they're all beige...  :-\

TelePlay

Quote from: Dennis Markham on March 08, 2014, 04:30:51 PM
I think we had a thread about this in the past.

Dennis, were you thinking of this one?

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=717.msg11543#msg11543

But I think this is a pink soft plastic, not beige.

Dennis Markham

Yes, John that's the one.  I didn't realize how lengthy the topic turned out to be.  Lots of photos of damaged phones in that thread.  Thanks for adding the link.

Dennis

AE_Collector

Yes, the Bad Packing Awards! It probably started as an individual topic but I merged a bunch together.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=717.0

Terry

Mr. Bones

Mine, for the record, was black, soft plastic...guess I'm relieved it hadn't been refurbed to, or rattle-canned beige! ;D

Best regards!
Sláinte!
   Mr. Bones
      Rubricollis Ferus

LarryInMichigan

The handset can be the phone's worst enemy when packed together.  I always instruct sellers to wrap the handset separately and keep it away from the phone, and most have followed my instructions, but many have not.  I have also told people in antique shops and malls, and most seemed surprised.  Even if a seller ignores the instructions, the fact that your ebay order includes the instructions could conceivably give you a better claim against a seller if they refuse to reimburse you, since they were warned.

Larry

TelePlay

Quote from: AE_Collector on March 08, 2014, 04:57:20 PM
Yes, the Bad Packing Awards! It probably started as an individual topic but I merged a bunch together.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=717.0

Terry

Here's the photos from that topic, plus a few others including this one:  Bad Packing Results

Some phones deserved and got more than one photo in this collection.

rfkimba

My condolences. My first phone was to be a one time event in 10/2013. A WE oak phone 1908 in nice condition for $200. Seller used a little newspaper and entire one arrived smashed. I negociated the seller down to $45 for the wreck.  I spent two months piecing together the    phone repaired with parts from  a   second one on ebay and   additonal parts purchased  for hanger and mouthpiece assembly.
Then I was hooked on  buying phones.
Bob Farber

JimH

This thread inspired me to get out the super glue and JB Weld and try and glue my 1554 together again.  I started the project as an experiment and "what do I have to lose" attitude. It was in 12 different pieces and it was like a puzzle!  I've never had much luck with super glue, but it went well.  After I glued it, I sanded the inside and glued the cracks on the inside with JB Weld.  A couple of spots I had to use the JB Weld to fill in a few nicks/holes, and then sanded the whole shell.  Its very strong now, and I was thinking of just spraying it with some epoxy appliance enamel in white or black.  Rustoleum works great and dries very shiny.  Here's some pics of the before and after so far.

Jim

Jim H.

twocvbloke

I'd say you did an excellent job there, it's not obvious where you glued it on the outside aside from a few small grey spots, that's a very good job indeed, a bit of paint to match the original phone might better suit the phone though, so it can be reunited with it's original base... :)

JimH

I did think of spraying it beige; I think it might be hard to match the color.  I have an extra black G3 handset I can polish up and a black handset cord.  Or....I was thinking of making a Mediterranean blue 1554!  I have an aftermarket generic "koiled cords" hard-wired gray handset cord, and thought I could make a custom blue 1554.  "Old Ford Blue" engine paint from O'Reilly's auto parts matches Mediterranean blue very well. If I ever did try to sell it, I thought it would be fun to put in my ebay description "this came to me in twelve different pieces and was repaired" to see how much I could get for it. 
Jim H.

twocvbloke

Just take the shell to one of them paint-matching places, cos they can use an optical scanner to mix up paint to match perfectly, especially handy if they can stick it in an aerosol can too... :)

paul-f

Quote from: JimH on March 10, 2014, 11:37:45 AM
I did think of spraying it beige; I think it might be hard to match the color. 

If you don't want to paint it yourself, try Richard Rose (ericofon.com), who is having batches of parts painted in WE standard colors.  He's attempting to fill the void left after NSF closed.

I had some aqua parts done and the results were a good match.
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

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