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Different Dial Card

Started by Doug Rose, February 20, 2015, 03:55:06 PM

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Doug Rose

I bought a dial hoping the the dial card was not damaged, that it was the celluloid cover. No luck.....the nut from the dial looked fine, but something caused this. Maybe it was on another dial....bummer  :'(  Such a cool dial card....Doug
Kidphone

WEBellSystemChristian

Those rust stains don't really bother me. In fact, they look 'too good' without them! Really cool dial card, Doug!
Christian Petterson

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right" -Henry Ford

persido

Hey Doug, that is a nice dial card, to bad about the rust, I was playing around with the image to see if I could get rid of the dark rust stain, no such luck but I did move some numbers around and covered the rust spot, just for the fun of it.

Scot

Doug Rose

Scot....looks great...but what did attract me to it was the "Alhambra Service" which I have no idea what it was.

When I went to Aruba in another lifetime, there was a Casino by that name. Big Guy as a Greater who, of course I called Al....Doug
Kidphone

unbeldi

#4
ATlantic 2 was an exchange in Alhambra, CA.  It was probably the dial card for a taxi service or similar.

A quick check with Telcodata.us reveals that the area code is today 626 and the entire 282 exchange is allocated to PacBell in the rate center ALHAMBRA, CLLI=ALHBCA91DS0, today a 5ESS switch.
The first NPA of the town was 213 until 1984, then 818.

If you check the exchange number against the other, later area codes for the town, you'll find that those are all allocated to later providers, wireless carriers, etc.  Only 626-282 belongs to the original incumbent. Perfect fit.

Checking with a ~1950 telephone or yellow pages directory would probably yield a business name. It seems unlikely this is a residential card.

andre_janew

Interesting.  I would've guessed it would've been somewhere on the East Coast, near the Atlantic Ocean.  California is on the West Coast, near the Pacific Ocean.

unbeldi

ATlantic was one of the standard central office names promulgated by AT&T in 1955 as having passed all pronunciation, misspelling, and confusion tests. These names can be found across the country. What is nice here is that the card tells us where that phone was.

Sargeguy

I have had some luck restoring old dial cards.  Caution, this may lighten or remove the ink stamp but should not harm the card.  You may want to use a less desirable card to experiment. 

1.  Soak overnight in distilled water

2.  Drain water and repeat

3. Mix 1/4 tsp Oxi-Clean per cup of water and soak card overnight

If all else fails, as a  last resort

4.  Mix 50/50 bottled Hydrogen Peroxide from pharmacy (not straight hydrogen peroxide) with water

5.  Place card in a folded paper towel and put under a heavy weight, such as a thick book.

Greg Sargeant
Providence, RI
TCI /ATCA #4409

persido

#8
Thanks Doug, the number 7 and Alhambra service is smack in the middle of the rust spot, they were not usable. 

Scot

Krooster

I realize it's been awhile since the original post, but I've repaired the photo.