Poll: Rarest WE telephone?

[paul-f]

On another topic, does anybody know the production years of the 10 button trimline? I have one from 1966 and I haven't seen one earlier.

A few touch tone Trimlines were made in 1965, but general production started in 1966.  See:

  http://www.telephonecollectors.info/index.php/document-repository/doc_view/11588-66jan-blr-p9-trimline-a-telephone-evolution

[Dave F]

I deleted my previous post in this topic because, on reflection, it did not properly convey what I was trying to say.  Let me try again:

There are actually several distinct questions wrapped up in this topic.

1) Which post-1949 WE phone would you most like to have?

2) Which is the most valuable?

3) Which is actually the rarest?  That is, which is truly the most difficult to find?

According to the title of the topic, number 3) is what we are being asked to vote on.  Let's dig a little deeper.  I see that thermoplastic 302s have been given their own listing whereas, say, blue 5302s have not.  Why is that?  It demonstrates an unfair bias.  Obviously, a blue 302 is a highly desirable and valuable phone, but I bet most of you have never seen a blue 5302.  Yet they do exist, and they are indeed very rare.  Now, you might rather own the 302 than the 5302 but, if you are honest, you would have to admit that the 5302 is far rarer.  In reality, blue 302s aren't really that rare in the great scheme of phone collecting.  They regularly appear for sale.  The only thing that prevents you from adding one to your collection is the high prices they bring, not their rarity.  If a blue 302 is special enough to warrent its own line item in the poll, then a blue 5302 certainly is also.  You begin to see the problem here.  There are so many different wonderful rare phones that it is not possible to give each of them the special recognition they deserve.

I have only ever seen one mahogany 500U and one turquoise 2660 Card Dialer.  Which is rarer?  Who can make that call with any kind of authority?  There are many phones of a particular style that are exceedingly rare in certain colors.  I, and others, have been searching for a 1554 wall phone in ivory for a long time.  As far as I know, no example has yet surfaced.  Assuming that such a phone does exist, I would confidently claim that an ivory 1554 is far rarer than a blue 302, or even a blue 5302.  You might rather have one of the blue sets in your collection, but the ivory 1554 is rarer.

Some of us have in our collections phones of which only one or two specimens have been found.  These are true rarities, but this poll does not adequately address them, and nobody has the ability to determine which might be rarer than some other.  Because of our lack of reliable information, a vote on rarity by itself does not really tell us much.  To be at all useful it must include some additional criterion, such as desirability and/or monetary value.  It seems to me that this has previously been addressed in other Forum topics such as, "What Is Your Dream Phone?"

In conclusion, I think I will sit this one out.

DF

[JimH]

I've said this before, but I wonder why 5302s were mainly (I would say 99.9%) made in black, when color phones were becoming so popular.  You'd have thought they would have stepped up production of color shells (which we know they were making anyway) to fill the demand.  They already had the handsets and cords....Did anyone ever think that the colored 5302s were just "one offs" that someone made at the factory? (such as the "swirl telephones")  Is there any documentation for availability?

[unbeldi]

I've said this before, but I wonder why 5302s were mainly (I would say 99.9%) made in black, when color phones were becoming so popular.  You'd have thought they would have stepped up production of color shells (which we know they were making anyway) to fill the demand.  They already had the handsets and cords....Did anyone ever think that the colored 5302s were just "one offs" that someone made at the factory? (such as the "swirl telephones")  Is there any documentation for availability?

Most 5300 sets used an F1 handset, at least initially because the F1 is perfectly matched with the 101A induction coil. Shortly later they completed a conversion process to install F1 and HA1 elements into a G-type handset, the GF. This provided some additional acoustic gain because of its mechanical construction.
G-type handset with T1 and U1 elements came later yet. So, to provide colored 5300s right away in 1955 would have required extensive additional research to produce matching parts in colors. Research was still going on to complete the 500-type color sets, not all components (cords) were quite ready.

Clearly the aim of the 5300/5400 sets was to use up 300-series parts that were coming back from the field in huge quantities yet had not reached the design life time, not to provide extra color sets.

In addition, these sets were zoning restricted, especially in combination with U1 and T1 elements to prevent poor user experience with excessive sidetone because of the higher gain.


My point is that it is not a simple argument or decision to create more sets in color vs. black. There are many considerations that entered the equation.
Perhaps the issuance of black 5302s freed up some factory assembly lines for black sets that could then be converted to produce more colored 500-sets. To judge the decision making process now without having documentation of every aspect of the system is dangerous.

[paul-f]

Great points, Karl.

Since they were recycling 302 parts, most of the handsets on the sets taken out of service were black.

Also, many of the interesting 5302 colors that have been reported are from the color list that was introduced about 1957.  Color apparently wasn't a high priority at the beginning of the program.  I would love to find an oxford gray 5302, though.

While some of the early 5302 literature hinted at coming colors, it's likely that the accountants got in the act and doubted it was worth the cost to make and stock new unique housings and injection molded dial number plates in the desired colors for a project that was supposed to be a recycling effort. There was a cost for each part number created and separately inventoried, not to mention sorting and handling, production control, etc.

[unbeldi]

The expense of providing a telephone set to the subscriber was only part of the cost of providing service, another part is in the plant.

Recycling old technology was only possible to a certain degree up to a certain time frame, because the cable plant had been changed in many places to accommodate the higher efficiency 500-set.

Despite the fact that the 500-set was a little more expensive to produce initially than the 300-set, its efficiency was estimated to more than make up for that extra cost, because the cable plant in the field could be reduced from a 19-gauge local loop to 22-gauge wire, thereby saving approximately 50% of the material cost for copper.

The 300-set technology with the 101A induction coil and F1, HA1 elements required 19-gauge wiring in the loop, according to some planning documents for the 500 set.  Once that had been changed, or upgraded to thinner 22-gauge wire in some areas during the 1950s, they could not go back to older sets anymore and reuse them.  So, in any event there would have been a time-limit of usefulness of the old sets, whether they had marketing appeal by color or not. There really was no incentive to produce these 5300 sets any longer than necessary and when using them, they were increasingly restricted by zoning requirements.

[JimH]

Great information and the best explanation I've heard yet.  Around this time, 1955, they also began the "Continental" program.  I'm sure a lot of the F-1 handsets that came off old 302s were being used to make continentals, due to the fact that many of the D-1s that were coming back might still have had E-1 handsets.  It was easier to spray paint an F-1 handset and a D-1 base to make a colored phone, than to injection mold colored dial rings for the 5302, like you mentioned.  Does anyone have a sense of whether more colored continentals or (black) 5302s were made?  It seems the timeline for the 5302s was longer, about 1955-1964?

[unbeldi]

Great information and the best explanation I've heard yet.  Around this time, 1955, they also began the "Continental" program.  I'm sure a lot of the F-1 handsets that came off old 302s were being used to make continentals, due to the fact that many of the D-1s that were coming back might still have had E-1 handsets.  It was easier to spray paint an F-1 handset and a D-1 base to make a colored phone, than to injection mold colored dial rings for the 5302, like you mentioned.  Does anyone have a sense of whether more colored continentals or (black) 5302s were made?  It seems the timeline for the 5302s was longer, about 1955-1964?

Yes, that time frame seems right for the 5300s, the end is perhaps more fuzzy, but the beginning is firmly established to second-half 55.

The time frame for the Continentals is really just 1955 and perhaps early 1956, same for the Imperial. In so many places one can read that the Imperials were made to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the telephone.  Rubbish, I say, the anniversary was in 1951, and NO imperial was made in 1951 that has been found. The Imperials were just another color experiment of 1955. In fact, it appears all the color experiments are dated 1955, even things like the GN-4676, ... the 302s in 500-set colors (green and red) ... 1955.
By 1956, it was all over with those experiments, I see no credible examples that year. Perhaps some exist. I had one Imperial with I-56 cords, the rest was 1955.