I recently got a pink WE500 P/U "mushroom" phone without the light cover. Does anyone know of anyone who makes this part? Thanks. I'll clean her up and post pictures later, thanks
I recently bought one from a member of the ATCA that makes them. He has them in white and black. You'll have to paint it. Let me find his name and e-mail address. I think it was $35 plus shipping.
Dan,
The guy that makes the repro caps is John LaRose. I will send you a P/M. He may not want his e-mail address posted on the World Wide Web.
Dennis
Dan:
Was that the pink for $99? That was an excellent price.
Yes, It is absolutely filthy, but with Dan/P's cord dyeing method, I should get a matching cord (all the pink's are faded, huh!) Hooked up a transformer and the original light shined up. Nice original 3/60 with all matching parts. It had a hidden dial card underneath -- YEllowstone 8 -2676. I wonder where that is from? These things are really neat. I guess the princess killed the light up 500's, but I don't understand why.
Thanks for the PM Dennis. I'll get in touch with that gentleman.
I really wanted to bring up this topic. It seems all of the mushroom phones I have ever seen, whether they have been @ shows or ebay, seem to date from 1958 to about 1960. Do any of you guys have an older one or what dates do you have and what s your color?
I'll start
3-60 WE 500 Model P/U, Colour --Pink
1-57 in black for me. It's a plain U rather than a P/U.
Does your "U" work like a 'P/U", that is you can see the light stronger off hook, but have the option of a dim night light with the knob that you twist?
Exactly. From what I understand the P500 had no switch, and the light only went on when the handset was lifted. The U500 had the key that turned the light on at half-bright while on hook, and full bright when off hook (like a Princess). Then at some point they combined the two separate models into the P/U which worked like the U.
October 1958.
Well heck, if we're gonna post pictures... ;D
I need to send mine to be "Jorge-ized." That's a sweet, sweet red one, btw.
Hi Bingster:
That is one nice looking and elegant phone. What I like about yours a lot is the fact that it has leather feet. I have mine on top of my desk, but sometimes it moves a bit when dialing out. Mine has the triangular plastic feet.
I once bought a product from Walmart to bring back the original, dark brown color of leather. It is no a pasty product, but liquid, and I used a Q tip to apply it.
I have a pink one that is 3/58 and a black one that is 12/59.
Jorge & Bingster, great looking "mushroom" phones.
I have two, both black. One is soft plastic dated 6/1958 with leather foot pads. It is marked 500U. The other is dated 8/1959 with rubber pads and is hard plastic. It is marked 500 P/U.
This photo has been posted before. Mark Stevens did a report on the mushroom phone on the blog page. But I like it so I'll show it again. I got the idea from a Bell Ad that was similar.
I would love to have one in Aqua, Red, Pink, etc. An Oxford Gray mushroom phone sold for over $800 last year on eBay.
I thought I would add to the list of mushroom phones. Those are some great ones you've all shown so far and I really like Dennis' picture of the whirling dial. I remember that ad.
The 500P came along to replace the 500H, around 1955, and was sold alongside the 500U, which I think came along in late 1957 (has anyone seen an earlier 500U?). It lacks the dimmer switch of the 500U and the light only operates when the handset is lifted. I have two 500P models in soft plastic. The best one is moss green and pictured below. It belonged to a lady who worked for the phone company and got it as a retirement gift, according to her daughter who was selling the phone. I got this phone five years ago on eBay and haven't seen another one since. It arrived very brown and stained with, I assume, nicotine. I was able to bleach it back to green, but I didn't bleach the mushroom cap. I should go back and do that, but in person it's not as brown. I used around one part bleach to two parts water in a dishpan in the full sun and it takes at least a day, if not two. This was long before I ever heard of the peroxide treatment, which I haven't tried yet.
The first picture shows it after I cleaned it up. It's from 10-58 and has all the original parts. The second picture shows the dates. The third picture shows the insides before cleaning. The fourth picture shows the dial lit. It was taken before cleaning and doesn't come close to some of the others you've posted. But as far as rarity goes, this one is a pretty rare bird. I can also post some pictures of the aqua blue 500P I have in a later post, if anyone is interested.
Jonathan, that is a very interesting phone. I had not seen a 500P before. I have heard of the H model. I'd say the bleaching method worked very well. It is a nice phone and as you said, a rare bird. Please post some photos of the aqua when time permits. Thanks.
Here's mine dated 1949...
I got a green one 1958, I got a Pink one 1957, I got yellow one 1954, Na! Na! Na!!!
D/P
Now wait a minute!
That 1949 after-market light arrangement must be bogus. Everyone knows they did not have LEDs in 1949, silly.
-Bill
Bill;
It's a VERY RARE prototype, it cost me thousands....Batteries not included, comes with an A.C. adapter.
D/P
Quote from: jsowers on June 30, 2009, 04:44:18 PM
the 500U, which I think came along in late 1957 (has anyone seen an earlier 500U?).
January '57
Quote from: jsowers on June 30, 2009, 04:44:18 PM
I can also post some pictures of the aqua blue 500P I have in a later post, if anyone is interested.
Are you kidding? ;D Let's see it!
Yeah, I think D/P is pulling our collective legs. That LED light could not be from any earlier than the 80's, and what's with the arm holding it?
Looks like an E-Bay scam to me. ;)
Quote from: McHeath on June 30, 2009, 06:46:54 PM...and what's with the arm holding it?
Part of the monthly charge for the 300 series lighted phones went to pay for a Bell System employee to sit beside the telephone and turn the light on whenever the subscriber needed to make a call. Geez, McHeath... Everybody knows that.
Bingster:
Total lack of privacy with the Bell employee hanging around. ;D ;D
Wow, now that could boost employment! :D
Quote from: Dennis Markham on June 30, 2009, 04:52:40 PM
Please post some photos of the aqua when time permits. Thanks.
OK, Dennis, I will. The aqua blue 500P, which is from 6-58 with an 8-2-58 housing (the month and year I was born) has a replacement mushroom from John LaRose. It was white and I happened to have some blue spray paint in the correct color. I sprayed the top of the cap and used a small paintbrush on the underneath side. I would recommend to anyone who tries to paint these mushroom caps to do several coats and let it dry between coats. And sand the cap lightly first so the paint will stick. Mine looks OK with one coat when it's off, but lift the handset and the light shines through the top, which is not what the originals did. I didn't paint the underneath lamp area white and that could also help with preventing the light shining through to the top. The plastic is very translucent. But as you can see, it's an exact match in size.
This same picture of the aqua blue also shows two other mushroom phones in the background. A black 500U from 8-58 and a really sad refurbished pink 500U from Boston, with a 12-57 base and plastics from 1958 and 59. It's painted pink over pink (no idea why) and the handset caps are hard plastic. It's about three different shades of pink and needs a mushroom cap. I'm not going to invest in a cap until I can figure out how to remove the paint and make the plastics match. If anyone knows how to remove paint from soft plastic, please let me know. The best part of the phone is the number card, an unusual exchange called BLue Hills.
You can also see some of my old car books in the background and some stray Christmas tree needles. My phone display is in my living room.
Thanks for posting those photos Jonathan. Recently I bought a reproduction cap from John LaRose as well. It does need to be painted inside. It is black and it's for a black phone so I won't have to paint the exterior. I haven't used it yet with the lamp on as there are other issues that have to be addressed before I can get power to the lamp.
It seems a lot of these phones are found without the original caps. Of course it's easy to understand why as they come off rather easily.
Despite little imperfections, they are still nice phones that made it past the wrecking ball of life and preserved for future generations.
Hopefully I will hear soon from John Larose since I emailed him several days ago about needing a replacement cap. I am going to try to make my own cap in the meantime, since I have accurate dental impression material and plastic materials @ my disposal. I am also going to convert a black housing over to mushroom style (don't worry purists, it's a modular notched housing ) just because I like the look of the black 'shrooms the best. Dental drills can do very detailed cutting.
Quote from: jsowers on July 01, 2009, 09:44:57 AMI would recommend to anyone who tries to paint these mushroom caps to do several coats and let it dry between coats. And sand the cap lightly first so the paint will stick. Mine looks OK with one coat when it's off, but lift the handset and the light shines through the top, which is not what the originals did. I didn't paint the underneath lamp area white and that could also help with preventing the light shining through to the top. The plastic is very translucent.
It might help when buying a cap to paint, that a black one be bought. I'd think the black plastic should keep the light from shining through, and then you can get away with one easy coat of paint.
Hello,
Jsowers was asking how to remove paint from a soft plastic phone. I used "Easy Off"™ oven cleaner on a regular plastic phone and it worked great. I don't know what it will do to a soft plastic one. I found this info on a website from Prince Edward Island. I will post it below. Jiggerman
http://www.islandregister.com/phones/buffing.html
There was also a thread a while back on another foum about using brake fluid to remove paint from plastic. I do not recall if that was for both hard and soft plastics. but at least on hard.
-Bill
I used brake fluid once after a suggestion from a collector for removing some Polane paint from some hard plastic handset caps. I didn't have a good experience with it. I was told to soak the caps in brake fluid over night. The color pretty much went down the drain with the brake fluid. The red caps turned a dusty white and I could never get the color back by polishing. Keep in mind that I did this only once and probably didn't do it right but I would recommend using some plastic parts to experiment with that you can afford to ruin. I didn't try the brake fluid again or try it on soft plastic.
I have a 554 cover in soft plastic that was factory painted black. The inside is Rose Beige. I would love to be able to remove the outer black paint without having to sand the case. I am willing to experiment with the Easy Off to see if it will work.
Well, I still haven't heard from John LaRose about my mushroom cap so I made my own. I got a cap (thanks, Aunt Lynne, my coolest aunt who collects princesses but has one mushroom) , took a mold of it, duplicated it in dental stone (similar to plaster of paris), hollowed it out and added an internal metal ring to hold it. Looks good because the stone is opaque so the light doesn't light up the cap. Some pics
1) Phone as I won it (wow those aftermarket dial number rings are UGLY)
(http://i617.photobucket.com/albums/tt253/dvortv/pinkshroom.jpg)
2( Phone with new cap--two views
(http://i617.photobucket.com/albums/tt253/dvortv/mushroom001.jpg)
(http://i617.photobucket.com/albums/tt253/dvortv/mushroom002.jpg)
Mixed some white and red to get the pink and hit it with a little clear acrylic for the shine.
Dan:
I see that you are diversifying in other fields beyond dentistry. Very good. All you need now is to put the cord through D/P's cord cleaning method and you are done.
;D
True, I am going to Graingers tomorrow and getting my vinyl dye. Anyone know how to get water stains off old dial cards?
Gee nice, looks like dental school is finally paying off eh? ;)
Bet you could sell these, these caps seem to be lost a lot on the mushroom phones. Have we determined yet if the mushroom phones were made much past the early 60s? I've never seen one that was dated outside of the 57'ish to 62'ish range.
I have a nice ad for one in a 1959 Better Homes and Gardens, it's aqua blue to boot, very sweet.
Google knows it all.
Just google or bing: removing water stains from paper
You will get a lot of hits.
www.bing.com has a suggestion using Oxyclean.
I'll try the google suggestions.
McHeath, could you post a pic of the aqua mushroom ad? (or post a link to it)
I think the earliest ' shroom so far was from '57 and the latest was my 6-60 . This would make sense because the onset of the princess kind of unfortunately killed off the 500 P/U's
Here is an oddity and something of a project for me. There was a seller once on eBay who had a barn full of very odd things. I think he once worked at Bell Labs and ran a computer camp of sorts and they would give him stuff for the kids to tinker with. His name was Claude and that's all I recall. I bought four phones from him in a lot in 2005 and one turned out to be a 500H, though not what you'd think. It looks like a regular 500 set, but it has a clear fingerwheel and the wiring for the light, but someone took the lamp socket off and replaced the housing. It's marked plainly as a 500H on the bottom. This was the first model of night-light phone, available around 1954 or so.
I have another mushroom phone, what amounts to a black modular 500U that looks like something a collector replaced the housing and dial on. It has the mushroom and mounting ring and lamp socket and does function, but the plastics and cords are fully modular. I attached pictures of that phone too (the last two). What I'd like to do is drill out the housing on the 500H and put back the lamp and mushroom using those from the modular 500U. Easier said than done. I just haven't gotten up the nerve.
The logo card on the 500H is original. I think it may have been a display model at one time in its life because there is white tape and goo under the handset and the switchhook buttons are kind of pasted down. As I said, a real oddity.
Those are very interesting phones. I would love to get my hands on a 500H model. The story surrounding them is very interesting as well. I think that the housings have that support circle underneath in areas where the holes would be drilled. I have heard of collectors drilling holes to make a lighted phone. I believe the model 510 two-line sets are drilled in exactly the same place. It would not be too awfully difficult to locate a soft plastic or early hard plastic 510 to use the cover if you didn't want to attempt drilling and installing the brass fitting. I would say that with the right drill press and speed a hole could be made without breaking the case. It would be a fun project.
If you are tight with your dentist, he could use his high speed drill and cut the hole with no problem. I am going to make a black mushroom out of my pink so I can switch it out every once in a while (pink isn't very masculine for the game room). If you live near Ccincinnati I could cut the hole for the mushroom cap for you.
Dan, thanks for the offer, but I think I may just buy a drill press or a Dremel tool and do it myself. I'm in NC, which is too far away. Dr. Buchanan, my dentist, is a really nice guy, but I bet I would get charged for a filling if I walked in with a phone housing at my next checkup. ;) I suppose I could leave it in the car and ask him how much he would charge to drill the hole. The hygenist said he's Mr. Fixit. He seems to be the only one who can keep their air compressor running.
I'll post pictures of the finished product someday soon and let everyone know how it goes.
Here is the ad from Better Homes and Gardens, 1959, for the 500 mushroom phone that I have.
Thanks for the mushroom pic in aqua blue. What a beauty. If I could only go back to 59 , I'd pick up a box of NOS mushrooms (or rent them) and of course put a downpayment on the new '59 cadillac and Impala convertibles coming in the fall.
I love those ads from the '50's. Mom and Pop had separate beds in the ads and the TV shows. Where did all us baby-boomers come from anyway? :o
-Bill
Why the Stork of course, geesh. ;)
I believe the Brady Bunch, which debuted in 1969, was the first instance of a "shared" bed on a TV show. Funny thing is, Mike Brady, the father, was gay.
I once had a secret crush on Elizabeth Montgomery, who played "Bewitched" in 1964. The actor Darrin Stevens who played her husband was gay and I don't care. In my humble experience it's not contagious. Kindly evil laugh. Hee.
Twin beds were common in movies and tv for well-known reasons, but they were also much more common in real life that most people today would suspect. I collect old magazines, and in architectural and home magazines in which photos of real-life rooms are shown, you see just as many bedrooms with twin beds as "regular" beds.
I remember Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore each having their own beds on the Dick Van Dyke Show back in the 60's.
Hobie, the actor you are referring to was the second Darrin. The stage name was Darrin Stevens. The actor was Dick Sergeant. The original Darrin was Dick York. I watched way too much TV as a kid and as an old man too!
Quote from: HobieSport on July 08, 2009, 07:28:49 PM
I once had a secret crush on Elizabeth Montgomery, who played "Bewitched" in 1964. The actor Darrin Stevens who played her husband was gay and I don't care. In my humble experience it's not contagious. Kindly evil laugh. Hee.
If you have ever seen season three of the twilight zone, here's a beautiful 'Liz Montgomery with natural hair color circa 1961
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgaRKF6_Kiw
I have always had a crush on her myself....
Me too (crush) as has just about every red blooded American male. She was a very beautiful woman. There are often some good shots of 1960's style phones in that show too. I see the show on my cable system on WGN out of Chicago. But it's often late at night.
She and Charles Bronson look like kids in that video.
I taped many an episode of the twilight zone of WGN back in the day. I actually edited all 156 episodes on 10 VHS tapes. This was before DVD's. A lot od work went into that. Now you can get whole seasons @ the library remastered and beautiful.
I can beat twin beds for a married couple with my house, it was custom built for the owners in 1966 to their personal needs. It has 2 separate master suites, they did not even share bedrooms.
Probably a very happily married couple lived there....
Speaking of lighted phones, has anybody ever seen a P/U type phone in a TT version? Were they so unpopular that they didn't offer that feature beyond the dial versions?
I have never seen a P/U touchtone, but I have a TT with a little red light that comes on to verify it is ringing (I believe it was made for hearing impaired individuals)
Dan:
I believe they were also used in motels/hotels to signify ringing when the volume was turned off and to indicate a message watiting.
-Bill