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Box of Junk? $10.00

Started by boynblue27, November 05, 2011, 09:25:30 PM

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boynblue27

Well happen to stop by an estate sell and inquired about telephones for sale.  After looking at a 2500 she had in the living room I told her I was looking for old rotary's.  She said well I think there is some in the garage.  So after walking briskly to the backyard I found 3 boxes FULL of phones.  I went through and sat out 13 phones I thought would be OK to restore or for parts.  I asked the man how much and he said 250.  I was like whoa that is too much.  So how bout just this one.  Well, he said "50 cents".  I was oh my.  I thought he meant $250 dollars.  So I told him I would take the whole lot for $20.  I ended up just picking out 13 phones and cords and such and ended up paying him $10.  However, he said there could be more out in the storage shed.  So I will be back tomorrow and check it out.  Not the best finds but for the price I think I did OK.  Some are cracked and quite a few are missing the handsets.  But I did get 2 or 3 that are compete and will clean up nicely.  Hope there's more in that storage shed!



Dan

Like the red Stromberg Carlson. I wondered why WE or AE never made a small rotary wall phone like this........
"Imagine how weird telephones would look if our ears weren't so close to our mouths." - Steven Wright

Adam

I agree, Dan, but I think the coolest part of the Stromberg wall phones was the matching color rotary dial.  It would have been neat if Western Electric did that with the Princess phone...

Nice haul, boynblue27!
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

AE_Collector

Quote from: Dan on November 05, 2011, 11:18:30 PM
Like the red Stromberg Carlson. I wondered why WE or AE never made a small rotary wall phone like this........

AE did, the 192 Starlite Wall Phone.

Terry

paul-f

WE did make a compact rotary wall phone.
   http://www.paul-f.com/wecw.html

After field trials they decided it didn't pay to make it a standard product.  They elected instead to stay with the existing 554s for rotary wall sets and modify the design for touch tone.

Why invest in molds and production equipment for a new rotary set when they were planning to replace them all with touch tone?

For users who wanted a rotary wall set, they could continue using new 554s, or better yet refurb old ones that were replaced by 2554s.  As we know, they loved recycling the old stuff!
Visit: paul-f.com         WE  500  Design_Line

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jsowers

Quote from: Adam on November 05, 2011, 11:26:38 PM
I agree, Dan, but I think the coolest part of the Stromberg wall phones was the matching color rotary dial.  It would have been neat if Western Electric did that with the Princess phone...

Then how would they get it to light? A mushroom cap? That would have been a big step backward.

Boynblue, what you got was a treasure trove of parts (dials, cords, ringers,  receiver elements, etc.) you will be able to go to time and time again, and a lot of nice projects for a rainy day. That white 2702 Princess looks like it could be a good one, or at least it's not faded. It could be worth more than the cost of the entire box.
Jonathan