Nov 7 San Jose phone show report

[bwanna]

looks like a good day, heath i saw your name in the online list last night. fell asleep waiting for you to post pics ya, i know i'm lame.

what kind of wall phone is that, the one pictured next to the pig

amazing restraint....only one princess? when for only a $1 more, you could have two

that looks like a fan blade clamped to the red 202. what's the deal with that?

has the missus fallen into the deep dark abyss of phone addiction, now.  

thx for sharing.

ps   i forgot to mention the coolest of your finds.....the poster!! is there a date on it

[Dan]

Nice report. Anyone going to the Cincinnati Area Show the 14th? I'll be there.

[Phonesrfun]

ps   i forgot to mention the coolest of your finds.....the poster!! is there a date on it

I had one of those posters when I was a kid in the late 60's.  The Bell System used to have dislplays at home and garden shows, and they used to give them away as a promo item.  They are real cool.

[McHeath]

Bwanna, the odd phone with the piggie friend is a Western Electric A1 wall phone, probably from the early 30's and not a regular production item.

Cleaned up the moss green princess, only took a good bath and some polish to make it a real good looking phone.  Very pleased for a 2 dollar expense.  Oddly enough the plastics are all dated 1964, as well as the cord, but the base is dated 1973.  The dial is from 1970.  Weird.

That poster is about 20" by 24" and is very cool.  It's from 1969 and the woman had a stack of them all in new condition. 

That fan blade thingie on the 202 was a shoulder rest, it worked, but was not very comfy. 

Doubtful that the missus has fallen into the abyss of phone collecting, she is pretty good at self control.  It was the colors that overcame her, that nice shiny orange and yellow were too much to resist. 

[McHeath]

Spent a nice afternoon cleaning up the phones and parts from the show.  That green Princess really turned out to be a diamond in the rough, it polished up real well and is very handsome.  The orange and yellow Trimlines were good to start with and a polish gave them a nice shine.  The red 500 shell came out real well also, and I've fitted it to a 1954 black 500 to create an imitation early colored 500 with the black dial and handset.  I figure that considering the prices of such phones this is the closest I will be able to get to one for the foreseeable future. 

If any of you ever have the chance to go to a phone show it's worth the trip, good people and good deals.

[Dennis Markham]

Heath it sounds like you did well there.  I have only been to the small regional show.  I would really like to make it down to Cincinnati next week.  If it works out Dan, I'll let you know so we can meet up.

[Dan]

I'll be there @ the opening. I'll wear a Detroit lions jacket (can't be too many of them in Cincinnati)

[Dennis Markham]

Dan, if you wear that people will feel sorry for you and sell you stuff cheap!

[bellsystemproperty]

Be sure you post lots of pictures from the Cincinatti show. You should look for those Western Electric explosion proof phones that look like tanks. They're cool 

[bwanna]

bsp... where are your pics from san jose

[rp2813]

Wait a minute!  I live in San Jose and I knew nothing about this!  Mc Heath, can you contact me with details on where this happened and when I might get another chance to attend one?

Thanks,

Ralph

[Dan]

Cincinnati Show report

Unfortunately, my camera had dead batteries (thanks, son)

I got a real nice "muted blue "554 wall phone for  $1. It's my first dark blue WE phone (i cannot nor do I wish to pay a ton for the Mediterranean blue ones--yet)

If you aren't familiar with these, they like like a dark "country blue'.

I got a nice sea foam green AE80 that i suspect was light blue and a NOS pink princess line cord both  for $10 total .

Tons of candlesticks and payphones (not my interest currently).

One collector had a beautiful WE rose Beige 500 for $150 that I was tempted to get, but I passed.

A collector brought a flat that had literally boxes and boxes of every phone possible, but nothing was too particularly rare. He has a leich reversible, lots of trimlines and ABS we 500's. Really any new we500 or AE80 you could imagine, but I like the older ones (soft plastic) My keys were in my hand as I was going through the boxes and for about 45 minutes I was with out them. There were literally over 600 phones on the flat, not counting parts so I was sweating bullets until I finally found my keys.

Overall a  fun phone day

[Dennis Markham]

Thanks for the report Dan.  I wish I could have been there.  I'll bet you didn't need that Lions jacket today as warm as it was.

[McHeath]

Ralph, I found out about the phone show in San Jose on the forum.  It is sponsored by the two major phone clubs, and is an annual event. 

Dan, your phone show sounds pretty interesting.  As my interests are mainly plastic post WW2 stuff it would have been fun to prowl those boxes.  Glad you found your keys!

[Dan]

Thanks, I left the Lions jacket in the car. Really nice folks selling stuff there. Same guys that were @ the Springfield Ohio show in May.