a 50s era No dial WE 500 that was poorly painted Black(originally Pink)

[rtp129495]

so of course 3 WE phones werent enough for me so i bought from e-bay what looked like (oh yea the great pics e-bay has) a black no dial 500. There were blemishes that looked like scuff marks, but i assumed the case was black and it does look black. However when the phone arrived and i took the case off to wire the ringer to work. I discovered that the case is actually pink and the "scuff" marks are places where the paint is coming off! its not a hot pink color but more of a 50s warm pink if that makes any sense.

Now this leads me to my actual question. How does one remove the paint?, even if the paint job is poor looking? im not sure its a WE paint job because i would think it would have been more durable paint. it kinda looks like thick car paint from like a spray can done well without orangepeel look. i would rather have a pink phone that looks good than a black phone with pink showing through where it was scratched, dinged, warn off etc.... Pink no dial phones would seem more rare to me, but maybe not? anyway i look forward to hearing what you guys think!

[jsowers]

Is the dial insert pink under the paint too, or is it a black insert? What about the handset and cords? Please post a picture if you can. Yes, a pink manual 500 would be pretty rare. By 1957-58 when pink came on the scene, manual (non-dial) exchanges were on the way out. I guess a motel could have had one, though, in the honeymoon suite.

Also, paint removal depends on what kind of plastic the housing is. If it has a circular date stamp on the inside rear, then it should be hard plastic. Does it have a stamped date on the inside front, under the dial opening? That would normally indicate soft plastic.

I've had a little luck removing paint from hard plastic (the kind with the incised circle date) with denatured alcohol. It takes a lot of paper towels and rubbing, but it does all eventually come off, and it won't hurt the plastic if it's hard plastic. It will dissolve soft plastic, so be careful!

[rtp129495]

Here is pics of the phone. after looking a second time i can see if i studied the pice more closely i would have know it was pink or at least a diff color. The dial cover is actually black with a piece of metal holding it on as opposed to the ones that sit on where the dial would mount if equipted. It does have black cords, would that have been done by WE? i would think so if its from that time. but why a poor paintjob with black cords?? the phone wiring wasn't messed with, the yellow wire was even hooked to the ringer vice L1/L2.

[LarryInMichigan]

It looks to me like there is a good chance that the shell is soft plastic.

Larry

[paul-f]

Is there a date code stamped along the inside front edge of the housing? (Typical of soft plastic housings.)

[rtp129495]

I will look inside the case again this weekend and post back the dates. I haven't been messing with the phone as AT&T turned off POTS at my place!! I still haven't worked out the ringing issue with it either.