Number Card Chronology Question

[JimH]

Does anyone know when area codes started appearing on number cards, and when exchange names went away?  I know area codes were assigned in 1947.  My grandparents moved into their home in 1949.  I have their original number card.  It has a sticker above the number card for the area code.  Although, I have original telephones from the late 50s with no area code on the card, just the exchange name.  It seems in some cases, exchange names, by the late 50s(?) were abbreviated on the card to just the first two letters of the name.  (I have not seen many of these).  I know by 1962, when my parents bought their house, the exchange name was gone.  This may have differed from area to area.

I'm trying to find out what would have been correct in 1959-60 for a Western Electric 500.

Here's the original 1949 card.  Notice the "4853" looks typed on, and not stamped on.  This was from Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The "area code" sticker is on its own celluloid, so there are two of them.

This card was originally on my grandparent's 302 when they moved in.  It was taken out and put in their new "500" in 1972, when the 302 was having problems.  I removed it off the 500 in 1981 when the house was sold.  I'm glad the telephone man re-used the old card!

[JimH]

I just found the thread from last month that covers much of this....my apologies!  I've been so busy I haven't kept up with every thread.   

[GLadstone]

Hi JimH,

Could you supply the link to the topic you are referencing?

I was searching for the same information today, but must not have been using the correct search terms...

Thank you for your time.

Take care,
GLadstone

[JimH]

This thread from last month has a lot of good information:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=12423.0

[JimH]

This is the number card I made for the 1959 telephone.  Not sure if the area code should be printed above the exchange name, or if I should've made a "sticker" for it.  Also, I could have pre-printed "BLackburn 3-", and then put the "1628" below it.  I've seen both formats.  Does anyone think the area code should or should not be printed right on the card for 1959?

[unbeldi]

The answers to your questions are complex, as the implementation of area codes didn't happen all at once, but proceeded over a period of at least a dozen years following the first customer direct-distance-dialing in Englewood, NJ, in 1951.

Complicating the matter are other developments that happened simultaneously, and partly as a requisite for complete automatic service by end-users:
a) conversion of all local numbering plans to 2L-5N numbering plans, that is 7-place (2 Letters, 5 numbers) subscriber numbers.
b) conversion of manual exchanges to automatic (dial) exchanges
c) conversion to all-number-calling (ANC) in which the 2L-5N format was changed to NXX-XXXX (7 digits), which wasn't complete in some places until the late 1960s, to allow for a larger numbering space.
d) build-out of the national network for automatic switching/routing for DDD


All of S-E Michigan was originally part of Numbering Plan Area 313.  With the exodus of Detroiters into the suburbs, Royal Oak and most of the other northern suburbs were split off into area code 810 in 1993. In 1997, area code 810 was further divided, with the immediate Detroit suburbs falling into 248, like Royal Oak, Southfield, Birmingham, and many of the little towns there in between those in Oakland County.


What would have been correct for 1959 probably takes only a little bit of research in local newspapers. Look into the classified ads, they list lots of phone numbers.

Here is the area code history for Michigan:


1947        1961  1993  1997  1999  2001  2002
|           |     |     |     |     |     |

313_______________313___313______________________________________
                  |     |
                  |     |       
                  |     734______________________________________
                  |
                  810___810_________810__________________________
                        |           |
                        |           |
                        |           586__________________________
                        |
                        248_______________[248,947]______________


517_________________________________517__________________________
                                    |
                                    |
                                    989__________________________


616_________616_______________616_________616____________________
            |                 |           |
            |                 |           |
            |                 |           269____________________
            |                 |
            |                 231________________________________
            |
            906__________________________________________________

[JimH]

That is a lot of great information, Unbeldi, I really appreciate it!

Jim

[unbeldi]

This is the number card I made for the 1959 telephone.  Not sure if the area code should be printed above the exchange name, or if I should've made a "sticker" for it.  Also, I could have pre-printed "BLackburn 3-", and then put the "1628" below it.  I've seen both formats.  Does anyone think the area code should or should not be printed right on the card for 1959?

I thought you were in area code 313/810/248.
My impression is that those half-moon stickers were mailed out to subscribers when their service was about to be enabled for DDD. So this could be during the 50s and into the early 60s. The phone company also sent out complete stickers with area code and number when ANC was implemented.   The 1960 BSP Section  C18.055.1 does not show a number card with an area code printed on it.  However, in New York, they did have number cards  in 1960 with the area code and 2L-5N numbers, no exchange names, though, because they started to use digit combinations that could not be matched to names.

[unbeldi]

Someone has created a number card archive at http://www.telephonearchive.com/numbercards/

There are some cards there with area code and exchange name, but only very few, and we don't know when they were printed.

   

The second card is apparently from Allen Park, MI, which is still in Wayne County, so it still has the area 313 today.
One could probably try to research when ANC was implemented there, and narrow the date of this card.

Here is a BLackburn card, but who knows where from.

[rp2813]

When my parents moved into a new house in 1960, the number card on the 302 had the same format as the "LIncoln 3-" card in the OP.  I think it was around 1963 when we got peel & stick overlays that were ten-digit with Area Code, probably because it was at that time when direct dialing of Long Distance became available here.

Many, many years later, I carefully unpeeled one of those overlays and I'm currently using the original CYpress 5- number card for this line on the 9/51 500T I have at my desk.

[poplar1]

Ralph, is the CYpress 5- number card black with white center, or gray?