554 line-in quicky

[gpo706]

http://www.porticus.org/bell/telephones-554.html ( dead link 05-02-21 )

This says the left hand knotch is for the handset cord (although modular).

Mines is hard wired and I have line and handset cord through this, did the line cord snuggle up under the chassis and through a hole in the back?

Was the line cord embedded into the wall cavity and through the chassis, like your panelphones?

I need to get some pics of my dogs up here...

[Phonesrfun]

I don't know if this answers your question or not.

The wall phone originally came out long before modular cords.  Originally, I believe the handset cord fed into the bottom at about dead center and attached to the back plate with its metal keeper.  The cover snaps in place with a mouse-hole style notch that surrounds the place where the handset cord comes in.  My 554s are in boxes so I don't have one to look at right at the moment.

The line cord coming into a 554 was either snaked in to a hollow wall and brought out of the wall through a hole that the phone mounted over to cover.  This was also pre modular.  In the case of a solid surface, or when snaking a wire was not practical, the wire was usually stapled to the wall and then brought into the phone through the bottom similar to the handset cord, but I don't think there was a separate mouse-hole for the line cord.  Line cords were always 3 or 4 conductor solid inside wire.

With modular cords, the handset cord notch was probably cut off to the left because dead center would interfere with the latch that holds the cover to the base.  Line cords could be either modular or hard-wired.  Hard wired in the early days of modular, then becoming fully modular later on.  If it were a modular line cord arrangement, then the phone mounted on an outlet box cover.  The outlet box would be the same dimension and interchangeable with a standard single electrical outlet box.  The cover would have the wire terminating to a jack that the phone would hang on by little knobs.

The phone then had to have a special modular back plate that had the modular plug on it that was then in turn wired to the network inside the phone with spade connectors.

That's how it's done in the states.

-Bill

[Dennis Markham]

Nice explanation Bill...here are a couple photos of the wall jack and a modular back plate on a Model 354.

[gpo706]

Mines all hard wired, cosmetically it would look cool if I could hide the line cord and sneak it in through the chassis, but would take a chisel, some plaster and new wallpaper to do it.

My handset cord comes out of the left hand "mousehole" along with the linecord, I imagine these beauties would look really amazing without a visible linecord, like your recessed flush mount machines.

There isn't really any comparable GPO unit that was hidden wired, every wall phone I have seen had a trailing line in secured with cable clips.

But you have given me food for thought here...

[Phonesrfun]

OK, I went to the garage and found the box.  This 1964 554 has two mouseholes;  One for the line cord and one for the handset.

-Bill

[McHeath]

My folks had two 554s in their Ranch Style House back in the day, one in the kitchen and one in the garage.  Both had no visible line wires, they were wired directly into the wall.  (This was pre modular days)  After Pac Bell came out and took the 554s in 1984 they left behind 2554s with modular plates that they installed, so the 2554s stuck out from the wall.  I thought that looked poor, but such was life.  My 554 in my kitchen has a line cord sneaking up to it, sadly. 

[bingster]

I only remember two.  The one at my grandparents had the station wire inside the wall, and ours had station wire tacked to a door frame (which the phone was a couple inches from) and run at a 90 degree angle to the bottom of the phone and then inside.

[HobieSport]

Our family 554 (early 1960s) was wired similar to Bingsters' and McHeaths' (it sounds like), with the line exposed but neatly and safely tacked tight along a door frame close to the permanently mounted phone. Or the line could be tacked to the wall and covered with a simple piece of notched trim work.