Interesting Imperial-Continental Facts

[JimH]

There is an active auction for an imperial 202, and the seller included some interesting information he got from his Uncle, who apparantley worked for the phone company and I thought I'd share it with all of you:

"As my Uncle explained it to me, I'll share his story about these Imperial sets: They were issued starting in 1951 and filled a 3-fold purpose.
1. Our country was still recovering from WWII and the effects of raw materials shortages that resulted, and then the Korean War came about and again hampered materials availability.  So, this idea of the Imperial series of phone filled the bill in regards to shortages, it allowed Ma Bell to recycle old warehoused equipment for one more go-around and continued return on investment. And every one of these fancy phones they could sell would mean one less newly made phone they'd have to produce.
2. Other manufacturers were already producing color phones and decorator styles in abundance, but Ma Bell was busy, being the largest manufacturer, with just trying to get the new black 500 series phones out to the public.  So, the Imperial phones became one of the earlier decorator offerings to try and meet customer demand.
3.  It was 1951;  75th anniversary of the invention of the telephone. It's not really known if that was coincidence, or planned, but Ma Bell took advantage of the fact and used it in promoting the new decorator sets.

All in all, every reason to make these great little phones was rock solid logic.

A few tidbits about the Imperial series that I learned from my Great Uncle: It was offered in 4 color hues of plating. One was called oxidized silver and basically looked like polished aluminum in color. Then there was "antique brass"; this is the one most often seen (the Imperial in this auction is this color hue). Next was "Old Gold"; it's distinctly darker and richer in color than the antique brass sets. It's my favorite, and I've only ever seen 2 of them over the years, and have never seen one on EBAY ( I happen to have one of these from my Great Uncle's collection. I can send a picture if anyone wants to see the difference).  The fourth color was called "statuary bronze" and is the darkest anodized finish they offered. I have never seen one of these, so I would suspect it wasn't a popular combination.

Also offered as part of this decorator series which the Imperial was part of, was the Continental phone. It too was a dressed up 202 offered in fully painted ivory, moss green, and pekin red.  From the get-go, the ivory set had ivory cloth cords, and ivory naugahyde bottom cover, and was equipped with a 5J dial initially, then a 6D.  The moss green sets first appeared with a 5H dial with polished aluminum finger wheel, black neoprene cords, and black or brown suede bottom covers.  Later running changes brought the green cloth cords, 5-J dial with clear wheel, and then the 6-D with clear finger wheel. The moss green sets have also been seen with the bodies of the dial in white, and also in moss green.  Lastly, the pekin red sets initially came with brown cloth cords, 5-J dial with clear finger wheel, then 6D dials. The bottom cover was brown suede initially, and may have remained so ?  Running changes also included red cloth cords. The subsets were painted accordingly to match the phone.  All three continental sets eventually started turning up with solid color handsets, usually of the F-4 configuration. Also, the Imperials were finally given the solid ivory handsets toward the end of their run.

There was one more set that was considered for this decorator series. It made it into field trial in the SF bay area (and possibly a few other places?) but to my Great Uncle's knowledge, never went into regular production. It too was made from a 202 and 684 subset, although the subset had feet put on it (similar to a 302) so it could lay flat on a table. It then had a specially cast (first ones were made of diecast) cover with a recessed area that allowed the 202 (less bottom cover) to set down into it for a flush fit of the base edge. According to my Great Uncles notes, it was a model GN4676 and was initially made in black, with F-1 handset and 5-H dial with black body and clear finger wheel. Initially, customers complained of it's overall weight so a vinyl housing was made for the subset. This helped, but it immediately became evident that the weight of the 202/handset mounted to it made the housing prone to cracking out the corners even with a low impact drop where the phone landed on one foot first. In either form, the phone was found to not be a workable model.

This GN4676 set pretty much went by the wayside, but a few of these were built in  one color combination for engineering/marketing evaluation. It was made in a pekin red/gold combination. Handset, and lower subset body were pekin red, and the 202 body was in antique brass plate (per Imperial). Cords on this set were brown cloth, though I'm sure red cloth would have been used on production sets at some point. Sadly, it never did go into production. My Great Uncle told me he had heard that a ivory/gold version was also made, but no photos or actual phone has been seen.

The red/gold GN4676 saw few made. I've only seen one; actually, just photographs.
According to my Great Uncle, these GN4676 sets are probably as rare, or rarer than a shaped Western Electric candlestick, even in all black! "

[Dennis Markham]

Jim, I believe the sets that you describe here are the Continentals.  The Imperials were just issued in Gold and Silver....A shiny surface.

Here is a posting made a while back with some links to photos of the various colors.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=1986.0

One of the Imperials can be seen here:

http://www.telephonearchive.com/phones/we/we202-imperial.html

[GG]

If I'm not mistaken, someone around here posted something about finding a subset with an oval indentation in the top of it that matched a D1 mounting.  There was speculation about how far WE went with those.

GPO (England) did of course stick with this type of design, "Tele. no. 232 with integral bellset," nowadays more often known by the slang name "King Pyramid phone."  These were heavy and unwieldy but none the less served the purpose of providing an integral bellset for situations where that made more sense than mounting the bellset on the wall or on the side of a desk.  There's one on my desk right now, connected to my work extension of my PBX. 

[JimH]

Dennis, this was part of an explanation attached to an auction for an Imperial.  In his description, he discusses both the Imperial and its Continental cousin.

Jim, I believe the sets that you describe here are the Continentals.  The Imperials were just issued in Gold and Silver....A shiny surface.

Here is a posting made a while back with some links to photos of the various colors.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=1986.0

One of the Imperials can be seen here:

http://www.telephonearchive.com/phones/we/we202-imperial.html

[jsowers]

Some of that information in the auction is just flat out wrong and some of it is debatable and confused with other models. Dennis is correct in that the Imperial only came in gold and silver plating, not the four colors mentioned in the auction. Those four colors were earlier offerings for the 202 and were painted, not plated.

Also, most of the Imperials and Continentals have capsules in the handsets from 1955 or so. Not 1951. The advertising also seems to date from 1955 (note the brochure that just sold recently with an Imperial on the cover). If they were indeed installed in 1951, then where are they now?

Do any Forum members have one they think was from before 1955? It would be nice to see some examples. There were color 202s before 1955, but they had painted fingerwheels. I'm referring to the Continental and Imperial only. The part about the early green ones having brushed metal fingerwheels is likely true, but most of them have clear fingerwheels. So do these early green ones have 1955 capsules in them?

As far as others being ahead of WE in the production of color phones in 1951, I'd say that wasn't the case. WE and AE both produced color phones, but in limited quantities, and other manufacturers didn't offer them yet. Can anyone name a company that was clearly ahead of WE in that respect in 1951? Color telephones weren't widely marketed until the 500 set in 1954.

One of the reasons for the Imperial and Continental that isn't mentioned in the information is that they were considered a bedroom set. The 500 and 302 were sometimes too large to fit on a nightstand and the Imperial and Continental had a small footprint. They were sold as bedroom extensions at a time when few people had a phone in the bedroom, to get people to add extension phones.

Much of the history of these phones is clouded by a lot of so-called facts that don't make sense. When we see the phones and their 1955 parts, and the advertising that survives, it's hard to imagine they were made in 1951.

If anyone has any concrete proof these phones were made in 1951, please share it.

[JimH]

It's true, I've never seen an Imperial earlier than 1955.  I've always heard and read that it was the "75th Anniversary" telephone for 1951.  Yet EVERY one I've seen is from 1955 or 1956.  Even the collector books say 1951.  Everyone's translation, recollections and opinion tend to be different.   Now I just wonder if there was a date on that great brochure that went for $77 on ebay!

[jsowers]

It's true, I've never seen an Imperial earlier than 1955.  I've always heard and read that it was the "75th Anniversary" telephone for 1951.  Yet EVERY one I've seen is from 1955 or 1956.  Even the collector books say 1951.  Everyone's translation, recollections and opinion tend to be different.   Now I just wonder if there was a date on that great brochure that went for $77 on ebay!

Jim, I didn't see a date anywhere on that brochure, but it's not hard to date it since there are also 500 and 554 sets in it. There were many ongoing changes in those phones throughout the 50s. The 500s in the brochure have color-matching dials and gray cords, and the 554s are in color, so it has to date to very late 1955 or early 1956, so that bears out what we've seen on the Imperials too.

Earlier in 1955, the 554 was only available in black or ivory. And later in 1956, the red 500 would have had red matching cords. We can thank whatever genius made the decision to date everything in the 500 set for that narrow timeline, and that the phones are so well built that they last for 50 years with all their original parts.

You're exactly right about everyone's recollection being different, and you can't always believe everything in the books. Sometimes they passed along hearsay evidence. For all we know, the seller's uncle read that in one of those books, since he's also a collector. I know they were my first source of information and they started me off collecting phones.

[HowardPgh]

I won that phone! Since I got it I changed the handset cord, is straight OK? $32 is a bit steep for a coiled cloth one for me. The handset is a painted hollow one with a U1 receiver (4 11 55) and F1 (9-47) even has cotton stuffed in it. The dial is #6 with a correct numberplate (note dot by fingerstop). I put a numbercard in it with a Pittsburgh downtown exchange number. (EXpress 1-).
I learned something about my phone from these posts. Thank You.