Here are my latest purchases from E-Bay.
The first one is an unusual IBEX 746, not a GPO 746 because it has a keypad and tone dialling. Note the US layout of the keys.
Next is a yellow 8746G. Yellow is quite an unusual colour for UK phones of the 60s & 70s. Only 'Concorde blue' is more unusual.
Finally we have something that might be a bit more familiar to those of you over in the US. I'm no expert on American / Canadian phones, so I'm hoping someone can fill me in a bit on this one.
They all came from the same seller and none were crazy expensive.
Andy.
That Ibex is unusual in that it has a US style keypad, as apparently Ibex developed their own keypads to fit existing pushbutton designs, this one seems to have just been an off-the-shelf job... ???
http://britishtelephones.com/ibex/t746.htm
The yellow 8746 is probably just a faded ivory, given the age of the phone and plastics... :)
And the last one, erm, yeah, I can say it has a K-type handset, but that's about it... ;D
The yellow one is definitely a yellow one. The big clue is the cables which don't tan with age. I admit though, sometimes a faded ivory does do a pretty good imitation. What stands out when you've seen a few though is that the real topaz yellow has a very slight blue green tint to it, while the tanned ivory has more of an orange tint with no blue green at all.
That last one also has a tone/pulse switch. In the tone mode, it is simply a regular TT phone. In the pulse mode, you will hear muted clicks when dialing a number. Some areas used to charge extra for TT service and this phone was to enable one to use it without pay extra for such service. The redial button, when pressed, dials the last number called. The mute button mutes the transmitter. It is used when you want to say something out loud, but don't want the other party to hear it. When the ringer volume control is mounted near the keypad, it is a sign that the phone has an electronic ringer. I suppose it would be possible for a phone to have such a ringer volume control and still have a bell type ringer, but not very likely.