Classic Rotary Phones Forum

Telephone Talk => Forum News => New Member Introductions => Topic started by: Icefire on March 04, 2014, 04:20:09 PM

Title: Hello from Northern California
Post by: Icefire on March 04, 2014, 04:20:09 PM
Hello, my screen name is Icefire, and I just bought a 1952 house. I wanted to put an appropriate phone in it, and found this forum.

I just bought an AE50, and am starting to restore it. Looking forward to all the insight and info on here.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: Mr. Bones on March 04, 2014, 04:51:35 PM
Welcome to the forum, Icefire!

     I'm certain you'll find lots of useful information here.

     I have a pair of AE50's, and think that they are some of the most beautiful phones ever produced. Yours will look great, and you will have well-deserved pride in it, when you are finished tinkering with it.

Best regards!
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: WesternElectricBen on March 04, 2014, 04:51:46 PM
Welcome to the Forum, a great place for information, and in your case, to scoop up a good deal.

I'm sure we'd like to see your phone.. Other phones that would go with a 1952 house, 302, or eairly 500.

Ben 
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: Matilo Telephones on March 04, 2014, 05:15:12 PM
Welcome to the forum, Icefire!
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: Doug Rose on March 04, 2014, 06:04:24 PM
Welcome Icefire.....look for a phone dated 1952. If you know the month of 1952 you could come up with a matching phone  ::).....Doug
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: Contempra on March 04, 2014, 09:11:50 PM
Quote from: Icefire on March 04, 2014, 04:20:09 PM
Hello, my screen name is Icefire, and I just bought a 1952 house. I wanted to put an appropriate phone in it, and found this forum.

I just bought an AE50, and am starting to restore it. Looking forward to all the insight and info on here.

Thanks.

first, welcome to this forum ,  http://www.telephonecollectors.info/index.php/document-repository/doc_details/406-ae-replacement-parts (http://www.telephonecollectors.info/index.php/document-repository/doc_details/406-ae-replacement-parts)..you AE50 is in this pdf.
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: jsowers on March 04, 2014, 09:31:05 PM
Welcome to the Forum!

If you want some historical perspective on houses built in the early 1950s, most of them had one phone located in a central location. In 1953 my parents built the house I grew up in, and shortly after my maternal grandparents built a house and so did my aunt and uncle. They all had the one black desk phone in a central location.

Of course things changed over the years and you don't have to be historically accurate. Get whatever you like and what goes with your decor. Any phone from the 50s would look great.

My grandmother next door to us had an AE50 in her hallway for about 35 years. I don't think it ever had a single problem. Even though it was located in the middle of her house, you could hear its ring all the way outside in the back yard in the summertime.

Good luck with your phones. You're going to need a few more for the bedroom and the garage and the den. With any luck you may have wiring in your house already.
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: Sargeguy on March 04, 2014, 10:12:07 PM
Order a copper/POTS land line if that option is still available in your area.
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: Scotophor on March 04, 2014, 11:19:46 PM
Hi from another phone noob, at the other end of California!

As Jonathan suggested, look for telephone wiring or jacks already existing in the house. In most houses it was run inside along the baseboards, though there's a small chance that a homeowner had it run behind baseboards or inside the walls, crawlspace, basement or attic. My current home had premises wiring run outside the house under the eaves, then down the outside walls and straight through wherever they wanted a phone jack. Some of my wiring is old 3-conductor (green, red, and yellow was ground; I don't think there is any more need for ground). More modern wiring is usually 4-conductor (green and red for line 1, black and yellow usually not connected but may be used for line 2 or possibly auxiliary power for such things as Princess dial lights, etc.). At one time when I had a bedridden parent I used the black and yellow to connect a pair of intercoms so I didn't have to run any new wiring.

If there are existing jacks in your house they're probably modular. Depending on your taste you might decide to replace them with 4-prong, or even junction blocks for hard-wiring old phones. Most phones back at that time were hard-wired, because having them detachable meant that the phone itself had to have a plug, which made it "portable" and cost extra every month!

My grandparents' house had only one phone, a black Western Electric 554 mounted on the wall, in a location that was originally near a corner of the living room. It was the exterior wall near the electrical service and coal chute (they lived in central Pennsylvania). At some time, my grandfather opened up the floor plan by taking out the wall between the kitchen/dining area and the living room, so the phone location was then in about the middle of the long wall... I don't know if that was done before or after the 554 was installed, or whether they had a different phone before the 554. But in any case, the phone was always a long way from the bedrooms, so if you had some urgent need to talk to them when they were in bed, you had to let the phone ring a good long time before you'd get an answer.
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: Icefire on March 04, 2014, 11:48:38 PM
Thanks to all who welcomed me. In Eureka, where I live, after WW2 there was a big housing boom for middle class mill workers and loggers. Only 2 companies built most of the homes here from 1946 to 1960. I have one called a Pierson home. One story, slanted slab roof, and other quirks the builder put in. (The company still builds here). So finding the phone jacks, or lack thereof, was easy. One wall mount in the kitchen, it's still there. None anywhere else(yet). So that's why I started with an AE 50, to give it that after WW2 early 50's feel. Hard to hide the flat screen TV, though. I'll post before and during and after pics of the phone project. Thanks again.
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: dsk on March 05, 2014, 02:01:53 AM
Welcome to the forum, Icefire!  :)

The AE 40 are my "daily driver" her in Norway. It is one of the most beautiful designs I know, and mine has actually a sound quality who impress me, even may modern phones has a more uncomfortable sound quality.

If you should have problems with getting a line accepting rotary, we have experience about how to get around the problems, converters, IP telephony adapters or cell phone adapters.

Here in Norway the P.O.T.S. has started to shut down areas, (I still have ) but I am prepared, and have an American IP phone account, and a cellphone adapter. (for the moment pay as you go solutions, for these backups)

My experience with Northern California are quite limited (Just designed parts of a machine used in the Bay Bridge project).

We look forward to hear from you, pictures of your phone(s) (You may get more phones.)  ;)


dsk
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: Icefire on March 07, 2014, 01:51:44 AM
Here's my first old phone. My AE 50. Just opened her up to start. Has a 100 inch brown cloth handset cord for some reason. My second phone, an AE 40, isn't here yet.
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: jsowers on March 07, 2014, 09:37:08 PM
Maybe it's the angle of the photos, but I don't see a plunger under the handset. The button that hangs up the phone. It's chrome and it unscrews. It's huge and oversized, in that early 50s kind of way. You have to remove it before you take the housing off the base. Also you will need a number card retainer. There are people more versed in AEs than I am who can tell you where those parts can be found.

It certainly has a long cloth cord. Most of the times they have coil cords on them. My grandmother's did. It keeps the cord out of harm's way. Sometimes they have what's called an "Extensicord" which is an elastic woven cord that often has lost its elasticity by now. I don't remember seeing a brown cloth cord on an AE50 before.

If you ever have a chance to see the movie "Letter to Three Wives," made in 1949, there's an ivory AE50 in Ann Sothern's kitchen. Thelma Ritter, who played the maid, answers it. It's the only time I've ever seen an AE50 in a movie.
Title: Re: Hello from Northern California
Post by: Icefire on March 08, 2014, 09:39:23 PM
Good catch, I had the plunger out because the shell was just setting on top for the pix. Have it all, though. I'm wondering if the cloth handset cord is Remake , it's in remarkable shape. Has cloth covered wires and spade terminals, though, and I thought the longest remade handset cords were 84 or 96", and this one is 100" even. As for that movie, the wife and I saw it a while back and remarked on what a cool phone she had, got me looking around, and here I am!