Soft yellow Plastic AE80, what's inside???

[Dan]

Was at numerous yard sales and finally asked an older couple if they had any old phones. They said they had an old one in the house in a box they were going to throw out. I said I would like to buy it. They looked at me puzzled and confused. I gave them $3 for it. I didn't care that it had no bells inside since it works all the way. What is the device inside that has taken the place of the ringer??? It is silent when it rings.  A nice 1957 soft tenite .






Nice date. Does XX mean no bells?? I do not know Automatic Electric nomenclature.

Finally look inside, what is it and can I remove it and put a SL ringer inside??

[LarryInMichigan]

Dan,

Congratulations!  You got a great deal on a really nice phone.  Yellow is my favorite phone color.  The thing that you see is a potentiometer which was included in the early AE80s for manual compensation.  They have been mentioned several times on this forum.

Larry

[JorgeAmely]

Dan: CXX means that the phone came from the factory with no ringer. The installer, as required, would install the correct frequency ringer, SL ringer, or leave it without anything inside depending where the phone was going to be located.

So yours is factory original.

[Dan]

Thanks for the info Jorge.

[AE_Collector]

And the "C" indicates a Metropolitan number plate. "A" would be Numbers Only and "B" would be a Blank.

Here's PaulF's AE Colors Chart including codes. Your color code is 17 which is correct for it's color.

http://www.paul-f.com/AEcolors.htm

Yes you can add an AE SL ringer if you like.

Terry