Hi everyone, my name is Ralph and I think I'm becoming a phone-a-holic! I'm enjoying reading the discussions here and I know I'll learn a lot and hopefully be able to share some of my limited knowledge and experience.
My collection is small, accumulated many years ago and includes a 1931 202 with similar vintage bell box and seamless E1 handset, a couple of 1938 302's one metal, one plastic, a 1946 302, and some 500's which I've come to love the most for their superior functionality, especially my 10/50 one that's very clean and my daily driver. Also have a 4/53, one that's mostly 1956 and a beige one from 1959 with metal fingerwheel.
I'm looking forward to having a lot of fun here!
Welcome aboard!
Welcome to the forum, Ralph!
hey Ralph. Welcome. Is your beige metal finger wheel black or painted beige?
Hey Dan, the fingerwheel on the beige phone is indeed black. I can't remember where this phone came from but it's basically unchanged from the way I found it and needs serious cleaning. I presumed the black wheel wasn't correct, but maybe I was wrong about that?
Ralph
Welcome Ralph. I've never seen or heard of a metal fingerwheel on a colored 500, but who knows what the Bell System may have done.
Quote from: bingster on January 03, 2009, 08:03:54 PM
Welcome to the forum, Ralph!
Yes, welcome! There's a whole slew of great folk here: Dennis Markham, McHeath, Bill Cahill, bingster and many others. Why, even Dan/Panther (D/P for short) is a heck of a guy! ;D :D ;)
Hey Ralph, welcome to our little world that is growing fast.
Yes many great people here.
Don't pay too much attention to Mark, We have to let him hang around here. no choice in the matter.
If you ever watched the Andy Griffith show, you know what I mean, he's our Barney.
D/P
hey Ralph, welcome to the forum!
Thanks for the warm welcome guys. Lost track of my digital camera when I moved recently but as soon as I locate it I'll provide pictures of what I have. I suspect most interest around these parts is in the 10/50 500. Forgot to mention I also have a mid 70's rotary Trimline wall model in white. Well, aged white, as parts of it have yellowed badly. It looks like a transitional model that's still hard wired but has a large and clunky modular looking connection (but not) on the handset for the cord.
I'm glad to see from reading various posts here that there are still bargain 500's to be found. I've been looking at thrift stores but they have very little anymore. The one that had a whole scramble table full of phones has closed. I think I'll start hitting the various flea markets and swap meets to see what's out there.
My current hunt is for a 5302 with G1 handset. I'd like to come across one in person as I think ebay would be an expensive route toward getting one, and the hunt is part of the fun anyway.
You can get a 5302 on ebay for cheap, suprisingly. I got one for 25 bucks (shipping included). Mine had the F1 handset, not the G1. It cleaned up nicely.
Thanks for the ebay advice Dan. I may take the easy route if I see an affordable one there. $25 including shipping would suit me just fine!
Right, 5302s can be had pretty reasonably off of Ebay.
Here's the last one I bought-#6 dial and G1 handset, a little over $25 shipped.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180299289330
My other 5302 has a #5 dial, an F-1 handset, and was $20 locally.
By the way, welcome to the forum! We have a great bunch of guys(for the most part :) ) around here.
Wow Ben, that is a nice 5302 you won there, and that's exactly the type I'm hoping to find. I haven't been actively looking but can see that once I start, it probably won't take me long to find one at a reasonable price. I guess finding one with a G1 handset isn't as easy as finding one with an F1. My goal is to fool guests into thinking they're using a more modern phone than they really are, and then there's that whole thing about the (5)302's providing better transmission quality over long distances than the early 500's did.
Quote from: rp2813 on January 03, 2009, 11:17:43 PM
Hey Dan, the fingerwheel on the beige phone is indeed black. I can't remember where this phone came from but it's basically unchanged from the way I found it and needs serious cleaning. I presumed the black wheel wasn't correct, but maybe I was wrong about that?
Ralph
Hey Ralph, looks like your metal fingerwheel on a colored WE500 could be legit, and not a "frankenphone."
Check out this ad on ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/1954-Western-electric-telephone-ad-teal-red-blue_W0QQitemZ380085312523QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116#ebayphotohosting
Anybody out there got a dual color model like these?
Wow, interesting. I just assumed anything colored would either have a clear or similarly colored fingerwheel. I know they did the two-tone sets early on, but those had black dial faces and wheels so can't be used to judge by. My beige phone is dated 1959 and I would have thought they'd be using clear fingerwheels on everything colored by then, but apparently that wasn't the case.
Thanks for the info Dan. I can see I'll be needing to figure out a way to get pix of some of my more interesting phones to post here for all to enjoy and discuss.
The two-tone phones had metal finger wheels because the dials were black, and all black dials had black metal finger wheels at that time. The all-color (non-two-tone) phones had clear plastic finger wheels.
Tempting to buy this poster. It's very useful information about phone configurations.
I do have a couple original two-tone phones. Mine however had handset cord replacements somewhere along the way. Here is a link to them from my blog site:
http://www.vintagerotaryphones.com/?p=50
The ivory phone is in excellent condition. The two-tone sets were made originally by just having a colored housing placed on the black phones. The color suffix of -3 should be on the back of the dial. The color suffix indicates the color of the dial bezel which normally matches the phone except in the two-tone sets. Original two-tone sets were made in 8 colors. The first ones had black G1 handsets and then matching handsets were made but the dial bezel remained black. Eventually the sets were made in full color with clear Lucite finger wheels.
Attached is from a booklet that was reproduced by one of the phone collectors from the TCI/ATCA. I simply took a photo of the booklet as seen here. Sorry that it's crooked. I will take a couple more shots, one showing the two tone sets with matching handsets and straight handset cords.
I don't have any 500's with lucite fingerwheels anymore, but didn't the dial bezels made for lucite fingerwheels have larger center holes than a bezel for a metal fingerwheel? That might help me determine whether my beige '59 was made to take a metal fingerwheel, but still I would think even a metal fingerwheel would have been painted beige. The black metal fingerwheel looks wrong on an otherwise all beige phone.
The only Western Electric 500's that had metal finger wheels were the black models---except these two-tone sets that were actually a black set with a colored case installed. Once the colored sets were produced in total color only Lucite finger wheels were used. If you find a set in color that has a black metal finger wheel and it's not an original two-tone set--- someone added it. I recently bought a red wall phone that someone had replaced the finger wheel with a black metal one. The first finger wheels made of Lucite were the soft center or open center type...later ones were the one piece hard center wheels.
Thanks Dennis. Now that you have access to this section of the forum we'll all benefit. I don't think I want to do anything with the beige phone anyway. My limited experience on this and other phone sites tells me beige is the least popular color, and that would be true for me personally. This phone might end up as a bartering item for something else of telephonic interest somewhere down the road. It also has a long-ish beige line cord with 4-prong jack at the end.
Ralph