Western Electric 500, Ivory, 1955 (mostly)

[Waterland]

I picked this up at a garage sale recently for $1.  The lady I bought it from said she had just pulled it out of her basement where it had been hooked up for a long time.  This is mostly a 1955 phone that was refurbished in 1974 according to the sticker on the base.  I can just make a 5 on the base where the painted over the original date during the refurb.  The ringer and network are both dated '55, the 7D dial is dated '57 with a color code of -3 for black.  The shell and handset were replaced during the refurb; the shell is dated '69 and the handset is dated '70.  Line cord is dated '73, and handset cord is dated '74.  Receiver has a date of '61, transmitter has a date of '69.  The leather feet were also replaced with the round rubber feet at the time of the refurb.   

The shell had been painted when refurbished and it was extremely filthy, mostly a yellowish brown color.  I used 91% isopropyl rubbing alcohol to strip the paint off the shell, making it a nice shiny white hard plastic shell with some spots of discoloration.  The handset had not been painted, but it is very discolored, although the caps are very bright white with only minimal discoloration around the holes.  Since this is such a mishmash of parts but a '55 at the core, I plan to turn this into a two tone black and white "tuxedo" phone.  Would that have been a color option in '55?  Even if it wasn't a real color option at the time, it will still make a very striking phone with a white shell, black dial face and fingerwheel, and black handset and handset cord.  Would I also need to get a black line cord as well to complete the look?  Overall, this is still a very nice phone, and I had fun cleaning it up.  If anyone has a '55 black handset and cord and black dial face for a 7D, let me know, thanks!

[WEBellSystemChristian]

Very nice phone!

White wasn't a color option in '55, but you're right; it would be a great color combo! Hey, you could use a TUxedo dial card with it!

[jsowers]

Why not try bleaching or peroxide to get out the stains and make the color even? Then you'd have a nice white refurb original to 1974 (it doesn't look to be ivory to me). It looks a lot better already than when you got it. I've used denatured alcohol to remove 1970s thin paint like you had and it's worked very well. It's a bit stronger solvent than isopropyl and won't harm hard plastic. Sometimes they're pristine under that paint and I'm left wondering why it was ever applied.

[Waterland]

I thought about bleaching it earlier, I might still end up doing that, but then the two tone idea came to me.  As it sits right now, it's still a very nice phone, I just need to put a modular plug on the end and it will be back in service.  I'll use it as is for awhile before I decide what to do with it.  I'm happy with how it turned out, not a bad buy for a dollar.

[RotarDad]

Nice phone and great price!  I see where this is one of those #7 dials where the part of the casting that sticks up for the fingerstop was cut off to allow the use of a 9-series dial bezel.  If you put a 7 series bezel on it, the fingerstop hole will now be too big due to the removal of that extension on the dial casting.  The refurb. shop normally would use a 7 series bezel on a 7 dial, but sometimes, apparently, they made a #9 bezel fit.