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1957 W.E. Model 500 - Yellow - Gray Cord Added

Started by Dennis Markham, July 11, 2009, 04:02:16 PM

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Dennis Markham

We had talked about adding a neutral gray cord to the yellow phone in another thread:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=1256.msg15941#new

My yellow 500 is dated throughout from December of 1956 and January of 1957.  The bottom, network, dial, bells are dated 1/1957.  The handset & caps are dated 12/1956.  Both elements from January 3 of 1957.  The yellow matching cord had some fading.  The strain relief is stamped IV 56.  Just by coincidence the neutral gray cord I picked up is also stamped IV 56!  So it's a perfect fit for the phone.  I took the time to install it this afternoon.  Attached are a couple of photos.  Now, to find a neutral gray cord for the mounting cord without stealing one from one of my others.

The original yellow cords feel kind of "sticky" even though they've been cleaned.  There is also some green dots of mold present too.

The first photo was taken when I refurbished the phone back in February of 2007.  The following two I took today.

BDM

The "stickiness" you mention isn't unknown with rubber used in the 50s and 60s. Many radios from this era have the same issue with their wiring. Even after being cleaned. I assume neutral gray would be correct for a yellow SP phone? Heck, I don't know??
--Brian--

St Clair Shores, MI

JorgeAmely

Hey Dennis:

Just what the doctor ordered to match your phone.   ;D ;D ;D



From the Bell Telephone System Almanac of 1957 ...
Jorge

McHeath

Nice addition to the yellow 500, those gray curly cords give a very interesting visual element.  Is that one of the gray cords you got from one of the phone clubs? 

These old ads you guys find are really helpful for getting some historical context as to what was being installed and how it looked.  I notice that a lot of the 554s have some sort of backing plate in a matching color, and they are really pushing color hard as well.  We had a black 554 in the garage, a yellow one in the kitchen, and an ivory 500 in the parents bedroom when I was a kid, so they managed to get my folks to spring for the extra charge for the color on 2 out of 3. 

Jester

Dennis,

That grey cord looks right at home with all that yellow!  Just to give further credence to your theory that your phone COULD have had a grey cord, consider my Med. Blue 500.http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=1193.0

All of the dates are very similar to your yellow 500, & it obviously came with grey cords.  In fact, both cords are dated IV 56-- just as yours were!  You mentioned earlier in your Mahogany thread that these discontinued colors were made until 1958.  Has anyone seen color matched cords on a late production Med. Blue?  My guess is NO, but I learned to " NEVER say 'never'" when referring to the Bell System!!!
Stephen

foots

Looking at that phone, all I can say is wow! That phone looks great with either cord. Of all the WE 500/554s, I think yellow is probably the best looking.
"Ain't Worryin' 'Bout Nothin"

jsowers

Dennis, thanks for posting the picture. Both versions look great to me, but the yellow cord is historically accurate and the gray one isn't for yellow after mid-1956. After that point, only moss green, dark gray and dark blue came with dark gray cords. Green may have changed sometime in 1957. At least those are my observations from looking at ten years of auctions. You can also see what looks to be a yellow 500 with yellow cord at the bottom right corner of the second picture Jorge posted and it dates to 1957. Thanks, Jorge, for posting that. I hadn't seen that ad before.

I had a former supervisor at work, a really smart lady for whom I had the utmost respect, call me a purist. I think she was right. So please don't let my penchant for historical accuracy get in the way of enjoying your collection.

I would love to do some kind of timeline of all the ongoing changes at WE in the 1950s. There were many of them as technology and tastes changed. That would help people to know what is accurate and what isn't. And we could adjust it as we found out new information.

The green specks you mentioned may be the copper tinsel conductors corroding inside and coming to the surface. Many of the yellow cords have this effect. It looks like green ink dots. You can sometimes see that same green corrosion on a metal clip on the cord inside the handset. It's copper turning green. But that's only supposition. I haven't dared cut into one of those rare old cords to find out. If any of you have one that's already falling apart, that would be great to know.

All the above being said, the phone still looks great, and you haven't done anything that can't be reversed later, so enjoy that rare combination of yellow and dark gray and wonder like me who thought nobody would notice they didn't match.  :)
Jonathan

McHeath

Well, I've got some phones that have features that they are not supposed to have, yet Ma Bell did it anyway.  The Bell System used up parts, which gives me things like a black bottomed phone from 1966, so I'm not convinced that they would not have put a gray cord on a yellow phone in early 57' if they had one laying about.  I'm a fond one for historical accuracy as well, but these old organizations did what they did with what was handy and so we often find exceptions to the general rules. 

JorgeAmely

Jonathan:

I looked at the original calendar. The girl is holding the handset (2nd page, lower right hand corner) of a Rose Beige phone. Scroll to the fourth page where all colors are shown and you can see the difference.

Another possibility for the green dots on the cord is contaminants in the plastic when the cord was made.
Jorge

jsowers

Quote from: JorgeAmely on July 12, 2009, 01:19:15 PM
I looked at the original calendar. The girl is holding the handset (2nd page, lower right hand corner) of a Rose Beige phone. Scroll to the fourth page where all colors are shown and you can see the difference.

Thanks, Jorge, for clearing that up. I couldn't get that picture to save or enlarge on my ancient laptop so it's the size of a penny and it was hard for me to tell.

Quote from: McHeath on July 12, 2009, 12:57:21 PM
Well, I've got some phones that have features that they are not supposed to have, yet Ma Bell did it anyway.  The Bell System used up parts, which gives me things like a black bottomed phone from 1966, so I'm not convinced that they would not have put a gray cord on a yellow phone in early 57' if they had one laying about.  I'm a fond one for historical accuracy as well, but these old organizations did what they did with what was handy and so we often find exceptions to the general rules. 

Some of what we see that are exceptions are something done after the phone was made, either by a repair tech in the field or a refurb shop. Sometimes they marked it with that red date stamp and sometimes not. Sometimes when someone wanted a long cord, the tech probably went to the van and got what they had as long as the customer was satisfied. In those days just to have a long cord was a luxury.

It's up to the individual collector whether he wants to take something original and change it or leave it original. That's a hotly debated topic in the car restoration hobby. Many of our phones aren't original when we get them too, so putting them back to original is very hard, and we have to settle for close to original. Having some kind of reference to what is original would to me be a valuable asset. There are a few books out there, but I find old ads and magazines to be better sources if they have decent pictures. And the phones themselves, when you get one that's all numbers matching, is valuable as a reference.

Have any of you ever wondered if you were the first person to unscrew the screws to the case of the phone since it was installed? There's no way to prove it, but with some of the numbers matching ones, with dirt on the cords inside the phone, it would be within the realm of possibility that nobody touched it in 50 years or so. I guess my mind wanders when I restore phones and I think about odd stuff like that.
Jonathan

McHeath

QuoteHave any of you ever wondered if you were the first person to unscrew the screws to the case of the phone since it was installed? There's no way to prove it, but with some of the numbers matching ones, with dirt on the cords inside the phone, it would be within the realm of possibility that nobody touched it in 50 years or so. I guess my mind wanders when I restore phones and I think about odd stuff like that.

I don't think that sort of historical wondering is odd at all, I do it as well, wonder if and when anyone else ever opened this phone and why.  As I also do Civil War Reenacting, a field that is rife with disagreements over what exactly is correct to what time period, I'm familiar with the problems of historical accuracy.  It's all pretty tricky when there is not a lot of good documentation, and I also find the old ads invaluable for knowing what was going on with the phones at what time.  You certainly seem to have a lot of knowledge about the Bell System production schemes, and it would be great if you created a chart of some sort spelling out what you know.  There is a web site that does some of this at:

http://members.dslextreme.com/~zuperdee/telephones/

and it's pretty helpful as well, though the system seems to be filled with a lot of unusual exceptions. 

foots

Jsowers, whenever I get a phone, the first thing I wonder is who made or got the first call on it and what the conversation was about.
"Ain't Worryin' 'Bout Nothin"

HobieSport

Quote from: foots
...whenever I get a phone, the first thing I wonder is who made or got the first call on it and what the conversation was about.

Ah yes...If Phones Could Talk! Think of the history of conversations in a family phone over fifty years...
-Matt