Original WE set from the 50's? Maybe

[CanadianGuy]

Around here  (Colorado Springs, CO) they leave dial tone connected, however, you can only make 911 calls and calls to the provider to connect the service again. This is on the "telephone company" lines (Century Link). I don't know if the other dial tone providers do it as well.
Jim S.

Yeah, I should've clarified that. Our incumbent does that too. Maybe it's a rule by the CRTC (our telecom governing body)

[unbeldi]

Very nice!
A 1956 554 still qualifies as 'early' by my accounting.  1955 and 1956 examples are hard to find, especially in color.
It gets better with the number card, which speaks to the originality of the set.

I think the phone was installed in the northern parts of Philadelphia.  It's the only area I could find quickly that had both DAvenport and FIdelity exchanges.  The Davenport exchange goes back to the 3L-4N period, before 1946, when it was DAVenport. Later there were DA-4 and DA-9 exchanges.   DA-4 (324) was previously DAVenport (328), while DA-9 was previously MIchigan-4 (644).
FIdelity-2 (342) was previously FIDelity (343).

Your number card is the original format and material, gray card stock that was created in ca. 1953 for the colored 500-series telephones, but was initially unavailable for some time, perhaps for much of 1954.

Perhaps the subscriber moved between two neighborhoods before all-number calling was installed in Philly, not sure exactly when that was, but it was probably around 1960. Since the second number is typed it may well be that the subscriber moved the phone against policy, and therefore it never received another official number card, which probably would have been a glue-on sticker with the ANC number printed on it, or perhaps the sticker simply fell off, as the glue dried out after years of service.

[Southernphoneman]

Very nice!
A 1956 554 still qualifies as 'early' by my accounting.  1955 and 1956 examples are hard to find, especially in color.
It gets better with the number card, which speaks to the originality of the set.

I think the phone was installed in the northern parts of Philadelphia.  It's the only area I could find quickly that had both DAvenport and FIdelity exchanges.  The Davenport exchange goes back to the 3L-4N period, before 1946, when it was DAVenport. Later there were DA-4 and DA-9 exchanges.   DA-4 (324) was previously DAVenport (328), while DA-9 was previously MIchigan-4 (644).
FIdelity-2 (342) was previously FIDelity (343).

Your number card is the original format and material, gray card stock that was created in ca. 1953 for the colored 500-series telephones, but was initially unavailable for some time, perhaps for much of 1954.

Perhaps the subscriber moved between two neighborhoods before all-number calling was installed in Philly, not sure exactly when that was, but it was probably around 1960. Since the second number is typed it may well be that the subscriber moved the phone against policy, and therefore it never received another official number card, which probably would have been a glue-on sticker with the ANC number printed on it, or perhaps the sticker simply fell off, as the glue dried out after years of service.

I do thank you for your remarks on this 554 as well as your imput, this was a very lucky find especially for the price, I think this fell under the radar at a buy it now price of around $42.00.

[poplar1]

Perhaps the subscriber moved between two neighborhoods before all-number calling was installed in Philly, not sure exactly when that was, but it was probably around 1960.

I don't think that phone numbers were universally all figures by 1960. Some places, possibly including Philadelphia, continued to use 2 letters -- without the entire central office name.

At least one Atlanta directory (from about 1963 if I recall) showed all figures only for newly assigned phone numbers. And other cities even assigned central office codes using two letter sequences that did not correspond to any known English words, in order to increase the capacity of the local calling area.

Here is a lt. beige 500 dated 4-64, apparently never remanufactured, probably with the original "AD 6-"
number card:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-BELL-SYSTEM-WESTERN-ELECTRIC-ROTARY-DESK-TELEPHONE-WORKS-HARD-WIRED-500-/141898148590

[EDIT:]
Also, a circa 1963 "AD 4" card from New Jersey:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultra-Rare-Vintage-Western-Electric-Telephone-NOS-Dial-/301867475322

[unbeldi]

Perhaps the subscriber moved between two neighborhoods before all-number calling was installed in Philly, not sure exactly when that was, but it was probably around 1960.

I don't think that phone numbers were universally all figures by 1960. Some places, possibly including Philadelphia, continued to use 2 letters -- without the entire central office name.

I didn't say or imply that at all. I simply made a guess to approximately when it may have happened in Philadelphia, give a few years.
In fact it is well known, that it did not happen at the same time across the country.


PS: but I agree that 1960 as a year is overly optimistic.  I know that by 1962  Trenton NJ, just outside of Philly was already on ANC in 1962, and I have a New Jersey Bell dialing guide dated 25 March 1961 that states that ANC is being "gradually introduced throughout NJ and across the nation".  Wikipedia reports that  Philadelphia still had some exchange names until 1983 (without citation). It also states that the first ANC conversion occurred in 1958.