Almost White Ivory 302

[Doug Rose]

I have had my fair share of Ivory 302s come through my hands, but this one is special. I found it yesterday at Todd Farm for $50, wrong dial, wrong cords BUT the most clean Ivory 302 I have ever seen. Dated 5 4 50 on the shell, and 6/50 on the base and ringer and elements.

I removed the incorrect dial and cord and have a picture of my collections Ivory and the one I found yesterday. It has a very tiny scratch on the left facing corner that I though was a crack, but does not go through, about a 1/4 of an inch, tough to spot. It slides on and off the base with ease.

Anyone have a WE Ivory cord, curly or straight for trade or sale?

Doug

[WEBellSystemChristian]

Great looking 302, Doug!!! Probably one of the nicest Ivories I've ever seen!

If no one has an original Ivory cord, you could settle for a (GASP) reproduction!

Don't worry, we all know your feelings towards repro parts. But this one might look better with new straight cords after all, even if they don't look 100% authentic.

[unbeldi]

The 'early', issued 1949–1950, post-war ivory 302s indeed appear to be made from a Tenite of lighter ivory, or perhaps of a composition that does not darken intrinsically as much as plastic used in the years after.

I repaired a badly broken ivory 302, vintage 1952, and subjected it to extensive bleaching to match the hue of a Dec.1948 housing that I use for plastic pieces for repairing others.  I could not get it white enough to match the two colors. Therefore, the repaired phone, which, otherwise very pretty, now has a corner in the rear that is blatantly whiter than the rest of the housing.


BTW, OPW cords provide a big visual improvement to a nice ivory 302.


PS: in this picture, there is still some paint residue remaining around the corner patch; I tried to paint the corner over with an ivory that usually matches other WECo ivory paints of the time, but was too dark here.  Not sure what to do about that corner, perhaps paint the entire phone blue.  The corner wasn't the only place of breakage.

PS: BTW, the same appears to be true for the ivory cellulose acetate that was used to make the last M3 housings for 354s in 1954 and 1955 (after the 302 was MD).  When cleaned and bleached they come out almost white.  I did only one, but when comparing to eBay postings of refurbished sets, most of them look rather light.

[19and41]

Thanks for sharing the pictures.  I had never seen that type of phone in any other color than black before seeing these on this site.