First Monday - Canton, TX - April 2015 (W.E. 464 & others)

[compubit]

Visiting family in Dallas for Easter, I woke up early (on my own - grrr) so decided to take a road trip to Canton, TX for First Monday Trade Days.  Imagine a large flea market/antique show/city-wide garage sale, then square it...  It's huge - over 100 acres with room for over 6000 vendors...

Picked up the following 5 phones - saw others (I'll list some of what I saw but didn't purchase later...).

1) Western Electric 2554 Moss Green (with screw-in shoulder rest on the handset) - $10
Picked this up to replace damaged plastic from an eBay purchase

2) Northern Telecom Rendezvous Pastel Blue - $10
Liked the color (needs a slight H₂O₂ treatment) - I've already cleaned this one.  Intrigued in the "network on the touch tone pad" in the base - downside, apparently, is the electret transmitter...

3) Automatic Electric 90 White or Ivory (TBD...) - $6.25
Looking for parts - particularly an AE Straight Line ringer for another AE90 with a 60Hz ringer...  This also has a GTE mounting plate for the wall jack (GTE used a jack that required the modular plug to extend a good half inch (at least) out the back of the phone). [Parts phone]

4) Western Electric 2902 Sculptura Yellow - $25
This is for a co-worker who asked me to find one in yellow for one of her son's rooms (to help encourage him not to move home after college - she's redecorating...)

And (to me at least), the pièce de résistance:
5) Western Electric 464GG - $30 (negotiated down from $40 sticker)
This appears to be in excellent shape 3-53, but is a mish-mash of parts.  The plastic number cover is broken, but it includes the cloth-covered cable with all of the spade lugs attached.
Phone: 8-53
Dial: IV 40 5H
Transmitter: 1/40 in red, and 742T, 454T, and R1051 in black ink (and TEL. CO. PROP in green ink)
Receiver: 12-21-49
RInger: 3-53
Coil: 101A 1 53
Case: 3 10 53 (in yellow)

Can't wait to get home to connect it up for testing!

Anyone know the compatbility of this with a 1A2 system? I don't have one - yet - but want to check compatibility.

[WEBellSystemChristian]

Very nice!!!

That 464 is really nice! I got my 440 locally for $40-something, and it had a 4H in really bad shape (governor was broken), and the entire insides are rusted beyond repair. I have replaced the dial with a 5H, and restored it the best I can. Yours, on the other hand, is in really good shape, and you got it for at least $10 less than I got my 400-series!

[WesternElectricBen]

Nice pickups! What ever you do, do not throw away the cloth line cord mounted to the 400 set, they are practical gold to me.

I have been having a hard time finding documentation for hooking up a 400 series to a 1a2 KSU. Although, it should work great with a 1 or 1a system.

Ben

[poplar1]

Your 464GG is fully compatible with 1A1 and 1A2 Key, since it has the extra set of hookswitch contacts, as welln as the correct hold button contacts, for A-lead control.

Earlier versions were designed for 1A Key Systems only.

[paul-f]

1) Western Electric 2554 Moss Green (with screw-in shoulder rest on the handset)

The handset with shoulder rest is a great find, too.  Often the handsets are found without the rest.

It doesn't screw in, but has two pins that fit snugly into holes in the handset.  It can be removed and reversed, so you can use it on the other shoulder.

One of the early pages on my site has some photos...
  http://www.paul-f.com/handrest.htm

For technology historians, the photos were taken with my first digital camera, made by Intel.  It was tethered to the computer, as most of the logic was on a circuit card installed in the computer.  The photos are at the maximum resolution available.  Things have come a long way since then!

[compubit]

Thanks!

I wasn't sure if the shoulder rest was original WE - but appears to be.  No plans to "trash" it.

Next thing for the 464 is to find a shoebox 1A2 system (to tie into my Panasonic) to connect my 3 6-button phones, as well as a some sort of terminal box for all of the spade lug wires...

A few of the other phones that I recall but didn't pick up along the way (between $ and having to carry things...):
- WE 2500 Aqua Blue
- ITT 564 Brown (with a hole in its side)
- North Electric (unknown model number) (which I would have picked up if I had a little more money...)
- Kellogg Redbar manual that was totally trashed (cracked)...
- 2 SC DialX Black desk sets
- Several AE 90 Black sets (not great condition, but would probably have
- SC 1543 beige set (completed with cut cords) replaced an ITT cover (and a rotated dial - newer dial with the older SC dial bezel...)
- Yellow TT Princess
- Beige Rotary Princess
- Beige Starlite Wall TT

There were lots of additional booths out there that I didn't hit before having to head home.

Will have to go back next time I'm in Dallas on a First Monday weekend!

Jim

[kleinkaliber]

An aqua 2500. Kind of a tougher color for those.