Question about making dial cards

[MaximRecoil]

First, does anyone know where you can get real blank dial cards that have ...

AREA
CODE

... already professionally printed printed on them? This is a picture of a Cortelco 500 made in 2003 and it came with one of those dial cards:



I was thinking about contacting them to see if they still have any, though I'd prefer to find some with the "area code" text placed up near the top of the card.

Also, the original dial cards I've seen of that type appear to have the "AREA CODE" text and the area code itself professionally printed, while the phone number looks like it was made with a rubber number stamp, like these - link. Here is an example from one of my WE 500 phones:



The unevenness and the general appearance of the numbers in the phone number suggest the use of one of those number stamps that I linked to above. Does anyone know if number stamps are what were actually used? Also, does anyone know if those number stamps usually have a dash in addition to 0 through 9?

I figure if I can get some of those blank "area code" dial cards like in the Cortelco 500 picture above, and a number stamp, I can make "close enough" dial cards for my phones. These plain "area code" dial cards are what I remember in our Bell System 500 and 554 phones when I was a kid, and I'd like to have some that have the same phone number on them that we had when I was a kid.

[Dan/Panther]

Maximrecoil;
Try here.
D/P

http://www.telephonearchive.com/numbercards/index.html

[Dan/Panther]

In fact the first link in the upper left portion has blank cards, and this is one of them.
D/P

[dsk]

What is the name of this quality paper. Ordinary laser printer paper are to thin, hard and with less fiber.

dsk

[MaximRecoil]

Thanks for the link. Those are ones that you print out yourself, is that correct? I'm looking for factory-made ones, so that they are on the right type of paper, die-cut, and printed on a printing press (rather than a home digital printer). So I'd like to find the real thing; I was thinking maybe someone has a stash of them left over from the Bell System days, or that maybe even Cortelco would still have some since they made rotary phones as recently as 2006 or 2007.

Edit: By the way, the typeface (font) for the "AREA CODE" text of the dial number card blank that you attached is Copperplate Gothic, introduced in 1901, known for its particularly clean look when used with professional printing methods (such as offset printing). Here is freshly typed Copperplate Gothic overlayed on the "AREA CODE" text in that image to show the match:



So if one were to print out their own dial card of that type, they would get the cleanest results by typing the "AREA CODE" text with the correct font and size (in a graphics program or maybe even a word processing program), rather than printing from that image. Or, one could print directly from the PDF file that I've attached, where I've already matched up the font, size, and positioning/kerning.

[Russ Kirk]

In fact the first link in the upper left portion has blank cards, and this is one of them.
D/P

Ohh I remember having hundreds of these in my truck.  Today I wish I had some that fell off my truck at home. 

[jsowers]

The device that stamped the "M" card above was likely a Bell System stamping kit that consisted of a tin box of numbers 0-9 and a small stamp pad. They come up for bids every now and then on eBay. They're individual rubber numbers mounted on small wooden sticks, hence the uneven look you noticed.

There were also stampers that did all seven digits and the dash at once, which would make them all line up better. Either one is correct and I have both of those stampers if you ever want any cards stamped. I don't have any blanks, though. I just use copies or something printed from the number card archive. If you have access to card stock paper, it's much thicker. Sometimes it won't go through certain printers or copiers, so be careful.

Copperplate Gothic is definitely the correct font. Didn't the Perry Mason show also use that font in their credits? It's one of my favorites.

[HowardPgh]

Try Ericophone.com  He sells nice looking cards, but you have to cut them out of a large sheet of paper. Its a a very stiff paper and easy to cut with an Exacto Knife.  If I can cut out Automatic Electric cards with all their little notches, I'm sure the Area Code cars would be a cinch!-Howard
http://www.ericofon.com/

PS: His card stock is ivory or white.  The original WE cards looked a little bit grey to my eye.

[poplar1]

I think M was already printed on the card; the phone center stores used to have these with area code and M already on them. In fact, they used a printing calculator with a roll of these instead of regular paper, and they printed the 7-digit phone number using the decimal point instead of a hyphen between the NNX c. o. code and the 4-digit line number.