curly cords question

LoveOldPhones · February 14, 2011, 02:18:49 PM

i was wondering about those early 500 set curly cords.

i notice that the phones i have from the
mid- 50's all have a cord of different length. was this an option for the customer at that time?
could they get a curly cord whatever length they wanted ?

thanks

jsowers · February 14, 2011, 04:01:25 PM

A coil (curly) cord was always an option on 302s and 500 sets in the early 1950s to about 1957. Then, for the most part, coil cords became standard across the board and straight handset cords were pretty much history.

Most of the 50s coil cords were of a standard length, about 6 feet stretched. Sometimes you see original 1950s coil cords 10 feet long and maybe even 14 feet long, but they're fairly rare. There have been examples of straight cords even longer than that. It could also be that some cords were made up in the phone company shop and the length may not be a standard one. I have noticed variations in cords too. There may have been more than one supplier of them back then.

One other option was a coiled mounting cord. I've seen them starting about 1957 or so, but they may have been available earlier. I've seen some that were about 20-25' long stretched. They suffered from bad connections since there was often a lot of strain on the cord.

Also, many coil cords from the 50s gave out from constant use and were replaced by 1970s versions of the same thing in a matching color. You can sometimes tell by the strain relief and the circumference of the cord what era it belongs to, but the real info is on the inner metal strain relief where it has the date (WE cords only) stamped.

The phone company frowned on very long cords back then, calling them a tripping hazard. You won't see many 25' long phone cords original to the 1950s. The Teletrainer (a device you plugged two phones into to teach school children phone etiquette) sometimes came with 25' long phone mounting cords, but the coil cords were of standard length. I suppose you could get whatever length you wanted if you insisted. But you rarely see long cords on 1950s phones today. They probably wore out!

Adam · February 14, 2011, 06:13:32 PM

Quote from: jsowers on February 14, 2011, 04:01:25 PM
One other option was a coiled mounting cord. I've seen them starting about 1957 or so, but they may have been available earlier. I've seen some that were about 20-25' long stretched. They suffered from bad connections since there was often a lot of strain on the cord.

Paul F says these existed, but I have always assumed that any phone you see with a coiled mounting cord is a repurposed handset cord used as a mounting cord, ie., they have red, black, and two white wires, as a handset cord would, and not red, green, yellow and black the way a mounting cord would.

I have never personally seen a Western Electric coiled mounting cord (red/green/yellow/black wires) wild in the field. Does anyone have one in their collection? Could we see a picture?

JorgeAmely · February 14, 2011, 06:29:22 PM

I have a black 500 with a black curly mounting cord. Mine must have been a mid 60s modification because the plug at the end of the cord is one of those 4 prong round cords.

I think Dennis M. has seen a few too.

May be able to snap a pic tonite.

LoveOldPhones · February 15, 2011, 12:43:56 AM

OK.... i didnt make myself clear. i was talking about the HANDSET curly cord. i just assumed that there was no such thing as curly mounting cord. that just seems too weird.

so..... it was the hadnset cord on the mid 50's 500 sets that i was talking about.
i have 3 mid 50's 500 sets and each handset curly cord is a different length. so... that got me to thinkin about was the handset cord length an option back then?

especially for the curly handset cord.

sorry about the confusion.

Adam · February 15, 2011, 01:06:09 AM

No, LoveOldPhones, I believe you were clear. It's just that jsowers mentioned coiled line cords, and I was following up on that.

I agree, a coiled line cord is weird. That's why I asked about it.

jsowers · February 15, 2011, 03:39:25 PM

I hope I don't confuse the issue further, but here are two pictures of a thrift store find from about 2003, a white soft plastic 500 from 1957-58 with a coiled mounting cord. It wasn't a repurposed handset cord. They made it with red, green and yellow wires as a mounting cord. I've seen them with 58 and later dates on the cords, so they made them at least as far back as 1958. This phone has a base from 9-57 and a housing from 11-58 with a boatload of melted places on it, like someone took a soldering iron to it. It's too far gone to sand, but it was only $6.99 (price tag is still on top). I never cleaned it up, except for the cords. It's the first white soft plastic phone I ever found, and the only one found "in captivity" meaning within a 30-minute drive from my house.

I have a few others with coiled mounting cords. A light beige one, I think, but this white one instantly came to mind when I went looking.

Also, I think the differing lengths on your coil cords may mean that cords were sometimes made up in the shop to no specific measurement. Have you looked at the dates on the cords, and they're all from the 50s? Later cords from the 60s and 70s could be longer ones.

Adam · February 15, 2011, 06:31:08 PM

OK. I concede the point that coiled mounting cords existed. Thank you for posting that picture.

I still think the idea is weird, though.

Dennis Markham · February 15, 2011, 06:59:57 PM

I know the point has been proven but since I went to the trouble this evening to take some pictures of one of mine, I'll go ahead and post.

This 500 is from late 1958. The cords are the only parts that are not from '58. They are both stamped '66. This phone came to me courtesy of jsowers. This is the way he got the phone. Not the 3 conductor leads in red, green and yellow.

Perhaps the user needed something that let them stray just a little further from the wall connection.

Adam · February 15, 2011, 07:26:32 PM

Thanks for posting these pics! They're very cool!

But, I'm still not 100% convinced. Can either of you do close-ups of the strain relief on the loose end of the cord? They look funny to me, not the strain relief you'd expect to see on the wall end of a mounting cord.

Seeing your pics so far, what I'm thinking now is that, OK, they're not handset cords, but they're not cords that were meant to be mounting cords for 500 sets, either. It's possible they were created for some other purpose within the Bell System, and some local telcos just offered them for use as coiled mounting cords for 500 sets...

Dennis Markham · February 15, 2011, 08:03:17 PM

Dave, those ends are what I normally find on cords that were designed to be attached to a 283B 4-Prong plug. The little silver "wing" is what keeps it from being pulled from the plug.

guitar1580 · February 15, 2011, 08:39:18 PM

Interesting to hear about the tripping hazard being a concern. I always wondered as a child why the phone co. only put about 3 or 4 feet of mounting cord on our new 500 upstairs phone, instead of installing enough to take the phone across the room. I'd guess cost / cord usage was part of it too.

Josh P

cihensley@aol.com · February 15, 2011, 09:13:27 PM

Dennis - The "wings" also kept the cord from coming loose from a 42 connecting block.

Chuck

Dennis Markham · February 15, 2011, 09:51:54 PM

Thanks for that info, Chuck.

Adam · February 15, 2011, 10:04:13 PM

Quote from: Dennis Markham on February 15, 2011, 08:03:17 PM
Dave, those ends are what I normally find on cords that were designed to be attached to a 283B 4-Prong plug. The little silver "wing" is what keeps it from being pulled from the plug.

OK. Didn't look like it from the pic. I guess they're coiled mounting cords after all. Like I said, I never saw one in the wild. Maybe they didn't offer them at NY Telephone which served the area where I grew up...

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curly cords question