WE 691A on eBay

[JimHyak]

I was happy to fill this hole in my collection, a 691A that went for a reasonable price. If my poor memory is correct, the last one I saw went for hundreds, but I didn't write it down.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/122429627324
Unfortunately, the solid Tx cap on the handset has been replaced with a normal one, hopefully that's the only thing wrong with the phone.

What it should be from Paul-F's site:
http://www.paul-f.com/we691.htm

Of course, should anyone actually have a spare blank cap, please PM me, but I won't be holding my breath.

Jim

[WEBellSystemChristian]

Nice find! I understand those are fairly rare.

It looks like the whole handset was replaced with one from the '50s (no center holes in the handset caps). Your phone is dated 1962.

FYI, I have a black G3 handset with the no-hole transmitter cap dated 1962. Let us know what it turns out to be!

[JimHyak]

Thanks Christian, I will let you know.
I would say that it's amazing that your handset is also dated 1962, but my observation of various "rare" (I hate using that word anymore after seeing it on every eBay listing) phones is that it seems they were made in batches and all have the same or close dates. Look at the transparent phones, for example. For the 500, all seem to be one of 3 or 4 dates, years apart. It leads me to believe that at some WE factory, the order was given to make a batch of a particular phone, which were drawn from until gone. It would be interesting to know if that's the case, if anyone on the forum has firsthand knowledge.
Jim

[paul-f]

It leads me to believe that at some WE factory, the order was given to make a batch of a particular phone, which were drawn from until gone. It would be interesting to know if that's the case, if anyone on the forum has firsthand knowledge.

While I don't have firsthand WE experience, I do have large company manufacturing from about the same era. It was common practice for the production controllers to use models variously called "economic production quantity" or "economic manufacturing quantity" to determine optimal runs of each product variation that required set-up costs. They estimated the trade-off of set-up costs versus inventory holding costs for each product variant. The result was batch runs for each variant, as you speculated.

Internet searches for either term will give you more than you want to know about the topic.

[JimHyak]

I received the phone today. It is in nice condition, other than the handset and rusty rivets on the feet, it is near perfect. The black hookswitch buttons fill the holes, but there is no hookswitch. The handset is, as you observed Christian, from the 50's. It is a very nice 4-53 with 5-53 bakelite caps and capsules. The TX capsule was disconnected at the back of a standard terminal cup, and left in place probably to keep dirt out.

I would like to get the proper handset, and will trade parts, phone(s) or $.

[JimHyak]

I should have searched the forum first:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=13776.msg144088#msg144088