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WE Trimline phone with round buttons and clear plastic backplate

Started by teka-bb, June 01, 2010, 01:23:49 PM

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teka-bb

How rare is a Western Electric Trimline phone with round buttons and clear plastic backplate like the one on Wikipedia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BeigeTLround.jpg

I've found one that's really greasy and would like to know if it's worth saving.
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Regards,

Remco, JKL Museum of Telephony Curator

JKL Museum of Telephony: http://jklmuseum.com/
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TCI Library: http://www.telephonecollectors.info/
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LarryInMichigan

I don't believe that it is very rare at all unless it is an unusual color.  These were very common back in the 1970s.

Larry

HarrySmith

I do not know if they are rare but I do know I sold one on eBay a couple of months ago for $49.00, without transformer.

Harry
Harry Smith
ATCA 4434
TCI

"There is no try,
there is only
do or do not"

jsowers

I agree with Larry. They're not terribly rare. The rare ones are the 1220 Trimlines with 10 buttons instead of 12. The 2220 Trimline in the Wikipedia picture isn't even the oldest version of the 2220. Note the 1969 Bell logo in the area above the touchpad. The 1969 and earlier Trimlines had "Bell System Made by Western Electric" in that area and the older Bell logo on the recall button. See the green 2220 in the picture below.

Certain colors are rarer than others. Light gray, black, turquoise, aqua blue and pink usually command more than more common colors like white, light beige, moss green and ivory.

They are usually not hard to clean up. Do be careful with cleaning the faceplate and don't let any liquid get down in the round holes. The faceplate is paper and it will seep in and produce water stains. I use denatured alcohol to clean hard plastic and it will get off all kinds of grease, grime and paint spots from the plastics and the cords. Also be careful removing the cover over the number card and the cover above the touchpad. They will crack if bent too far.

Also look for cracks along the edges of the handset cover. That was the part that was dropped most. Especially the top edge.
Jonathan

Jim Stettler

I think the early TT trimlines w/ plastic faceplates are the nicest looking of the trimlines. If yo already own it, it is worth trying to clean up.

As far as breaking the screw cover, it is very easy to break while reinserting it.

It is easy to mar the plastic When you remove the srcrew cover.

Remove the screw cover carefully, I have started soaking them in hot tap water for about 2 minutes, then drying them off and popping them in. I haven't broke any yet using this method.  But I only tried on 6.
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I give $6-7 for a nice rd button plastic face plate trimline. Square button sets I will only go $2-3 on. They also made rd button trimlines with metal faceplates. These seem rarer to me than the plastic faceplates.

Some of the rd button sets are IC based . They started making the IC sets in 1968 {Bell information}, the only production ones I have ever found were rebuilt in 1975-76.

Contrary to popular assumtion, fat-mod   sets were being made (and re-manf.)clear up until the end.  (w/ mini-mod adaptors)

There were lots of changes in the networks over the years.
One of the last styles of fat mod rotary I have seen is an LED dial and the mini-mod is molded directly to the board. Typically a fat mod rotary trimline will have the incandescent  dial light.



Jim

You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

GusHerb

I have 2 clear backplate TT Trimlines myself, they don't seem rare at all. They out of all TT Trimlines look best lit up, as a result of the clear backplate the letters in those light up too. Compared to Trimlines with metal faceplates, It looks real nice lit up.
Jonathan

Jim Stettler

Quote from: GusHerb on June 04, 2010, 04:04:30 AM
I have 2 clear backplate TT Trimlines myself, they don't seem rare at all. They out of all TT Trimlines look best lit up, as a result of the clear backplate the letters in those light up too. Compared to Trimlines with metal faceplates, It looks real nice lit up.
They also look the best w/o light.
The color contrasting mask looks nicer than a metal plate and is nicer look than the rotary version.

Early rotary sets have a nice dial center.

Currently there are not many folks collecting trimlines. It is a good time to buy them cheap and study the variations.

I also like the swirled SC "slenderettes". Officially the came in brown,red, green and yellow (swirled with white). Un officially they came in at least 20 variations.
On the swirlees I prefer rotary for the look. Official sets should have a swirled dial center. Un-official sets don't seem to.
JMO,
Jim
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.

Jim Stettler

There is a story that on the last day of the last shift of WE trimline production, they did a run of Blue/White swirl trimlines, for all the employees working the line. I would like to find one of these.
Also (telephone tidbit). The 1 in a Billion phone (1,000,000,000). Is a gold {plated?} trimline. This isn't shiny gold plastic color, more of a dull gold colored metal plating on the trimline. There is an embedded medallion on the handset that states it is THE 1 in 1,000,000,000. telephone made by WE. It has the recepients name and the date produced. This phone showed up at an ATCA show years ago and was offered for trade for a Blake transmitter. Blakes were running about $500 at the time. I never got a chance to try to buy it from the seller. I wouldn't mind owning this phone either.
Jim
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.