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AT&T 12 (or 14 / 16 button) 2500

Started by gpo706, December 09, 2013, 08:24:48 PM

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gpo706

BIN £10.99, I jumped at it.

12 buttons, plus 1 redial and 1 mute (14), and 2 switches - pulse/tone? and 3 set ringer slides. (16).

Then I read on a search here AT&T had Chinese made models, with cheap internals...

Please tell me it aint so!
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

Contempra

I don,t know gpo but just the handset is different than mine.. same color but only 12 buttons no extra on it and its a Nothern Telecom

xhausted110

Quote from: gpo706 on December 09, 2013, 08:24:48 PM
BIN £10.99, I jumped at it.

12 buttons, plus 1 redial and 1 mute (14), and 2 switches - pulse/tone? and 3 set ringer slides. (16).

Then I read on a search here AT&T had Chinese made models, with cheap internals...

Please tell me it aint so!
it seems so. I have some normal looking 2500s, but the phone is all in the dial, no bell, tone ringer. yours looks like the same thing but with more buttons...
- Evan

Phonesrfun

Quote from: gpo706 on December 09, 2013, 08:24:48 PM
BIN £10.99, I jumped at it.

12 buttons, plus 1 redial and 1 mute (14), and 2 switches - pulse/tone? and 3 set ringer slides. (16).

Then I read on a search here AT&T had Chinese made models, with cheap internals...

Please tell me it aint so!

Sorry, this was not really a classic phone.  I'm afraid you have a fairly modern, and yes, cheap phone, but look on the bright side.  Mute and redial were not features on the legacy phones, but you will have those features  :)
-Bill G

gpo706

"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

gpo706

Quote from: Phonesrfun on December 09, 2013, 09:01:45 PM
Quote from: gpo706 on December 09, 2013, 08:24:48 PM
BIN £10.99, I jumped at it.

12 buttons, plus 1 redial and 1 mute (14), and 2 switches - pulse/tone? and 3 set ringer slides. (16).

Then I read on a search here AT&T had Chinese made models, with cheap internals...

Please tell me it aint so!

Sorry, this was not really a classic phone.  I'm afraid you have a fairly modern, and yes, cheap phone, but look on the bright side.  Mute and redial were not features on the legacy phones, but you will have those features  :)

Oh well, at least it has a nice AT&T logo on it, which is what swung me into buying it!
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

unbeldi

#6
This phone was sold by AT&T under the name "Traditional 100" in many places. The formal type is CS2500DMGF.
Most commonly you see the beige and ivory models, often selling in the $10 to $20 range.  I have even seen NOS units in original box sell for $19.
The other colors are a little harder to find and I have seen them fetch $40-$50. I think I have observed beige, ivory, sky blue, brown, red.

I found this phone actually quite useful on the workbench, because it can be switched from pulse to DMTF dialing on the front panel for testing switching systems. For this the redial features comes in handy.
When a collector friend, who has a penchant for blue telephones, saw that I had a sky blue one, and it was in almost perfect condition, I complied with a wish to sell it.

The electronics in this phone consists of two circuit boards, for the pad and the main board. It has an electronic beeper on board, no real bells.

AT&T made a companion wall telephone as well. There is also a speakerphone version of this model.


twocvbloke

I've seen the odd few AT&T phone like this on ebay over the past couple of years (including the "columbo" one linked to above), but they never really appealed to me, with the keys nudged over to the side to make way for additional features, it just screams "cheap" to me, and not the cheap I like (being a northerner!!)... :D

poplar1

#8
AT&T Technologies, formerly Western Electric, stopped making residential phones in the US (Shreveport, Louisiana and Indianapolis, Indiana) in about 1986. The phones were then made in Mexico, Thailand, China and maybe some other places.

The phones marked "AT&T" today are made in China by a different company--Advanced American Telecom or something like that. They paid to use the AT&T name.

Keysets for multi-line systems were made by the spinoff companies Lucent or Avaya.

So, for the most part, if a 2500 says AT&T, it usually isn't Western Electric, unless it was made in late 1983-1986, or unless it was refurbished by the AT&T former WE service centers (distributing houses) between 1983 and the mid-1990s.
"C'est pas une restauration, c'est une rénovation."--François Martin.

Contempra

I'm happy because mine is made in America  not in China. :D

gpo706

Many thanks for all the additional detail everyone, I guess its not as useless as I presumed!

Now to figure out a rewire to PST when it arrives...
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

twocvbloke

Quote from: gpo706 on December 10, 2013, 08:09:02 PMNow to figure out a rewire to PST when it arrives...

That's the most difficult task of them all... :D

Step 1:
Buy a 2-wire BT to RJ11 line cable

Conversion complete... ;D

gpo706

#12
Well, well - with a heavy heart I unpacked it and had a look.

When you handle it, you can feel the difference in weight, and the handset also feels very lightweight and flimsy.

As usual the handset cord is slacking and a bit grubby, nothing more than a bit of cleaning and re-stretching will do the trick.

Then I took my 1950 500 mod off the table and plugged the RJ11 from it into the back.

Tested all the functions (mute/dial/pulse/ring volume) and it all works perfectly!

The ringer is actually quite a pleasant warble, not very harsh on the ears.

So, all in all, might have thought I bought a turkey but it's a fair workmanlike set, even if it's mostly cheap badge labeled crap!

As Unbeldi said, its quite a useful machine for pulse/DTMF switching.
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

Contempra

No more problems twocvbloke :D and the phone works pretty well .