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Lucite Cell Phone

Started by Fabius, May 30, 2016, 11:35:56 PM

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Fabius

http://tinyurl.com/znojs2h


Saw this come up in eBay with a buy it now of $11 with free shippimg. Made to commemoration a financial transaction where the Greek national telephone company sold 30% interest in their cell phone operation to financial institutions. Here is what the seller has to say about it:

I own an advertising specialty company - now in our 37th year I am happy to report - and worked in the industry for many years prior to establishing my own firm.   For many years our best client was what was formerly known as "The Bell System".   Of course after divestiture it was later broken up into what was generally called the "Baby Bells" - and later morphed into many variations.

So over the years we worked very closely with Western Electric, AT&T, Southern Bell, Lucent Technologies, OFS, Avaya, etc.   I collected many over-run samples, one-or-a-kind spec samples, and the likes.

I am now selling much of those items via eBay.   Here is a rather unusual item - a replica of a telephone done in clear acrylic Lucite!    As mentioned, we produced many items for the telephone industry, although I didn't produce this particular piece.   I always have liked the beauty of Lucite.   This is a sample I purchased in the late 1990's from my supplier, BCH.    While I represented many fine suppliers of custom Lucite embedments, my factory of choice was BCH.   BCH was located in St. Martin, Canada and produced outstanding work.  I liked the custom design and thought perhaps I could show it to my telephone customers in the hope of selling others like it.    Unfortunately, I was never successful in this venture.

Lucite was and remains a complicated process.   It is a liquid poured into a form.   Most of those we sold included some sort of embedment along with special copy screened on clear acetate.   The Lucite was literally hand-poured into the form and at various stages the embedment would be placed in the proper position.   It was then "baked" and when removed had a frosty appearance.   Each piece is then hand buffed to a brilliant luster.   Incidentally, Lucite can easily be re-buffed to regain that initial luster.   Quite an impressive process.

Back to the Lucite embedment at hand -  This telephone has the appearance of a handset from the 1990's, complete with antenna and touch pad.   The special floating copy is screened in four colors - black, red, blue & aqua - on a piece of clear acetate.   That in turn was embedded in the top screen area.   In my photos I show the front, back and side views.

The piece was done in May of 1997 as a memento of a business acquisition.    Specifically:
Telenor acquired a 30% stake in Cosmote - a mobile subsidiary of Hellnic Telecommunications Organization.   The financial structuring was handled by Credit Suisse - First Boston and Alpha Finance.   Apparently this was quite a big deal.   Sounds a bit like Mr. Trump's ventures...

The size is 7.75" tall x 2.5" wide x 1.75" thick, and very substantial and somewhat heavy - weighing in at one pound!

Although almost 20 years old, it is in virtually as new condition.

Only $11.00 with FREE DOMESTIC SHIPPING INCLUDED!!!

This is a very rare find for a collector of old telephone memorabilia.

Oh, incidentally, I had the experience of visiting BCH.    The trip to St. Martin, Canada was exciting.   I flew into Portland, Maine and drove to my factory in St. Martin.   I stayed at the Benedict Arnold Inn, a quaint old place in the nearby town of St. George.

From a smoke-free environment.

I will be listing more of my telephone related items along with other old advertising pieces.
Tom Vaughn
La Porte, Indiana
ATCA Past President
ATCA #765
C*NET 1+ 821-9905