95B Date Range?

[WEBellSystemChristian]

Does anyone know exactly how long the 95B apparatus blank was produced? Paul F's site shows they were built between 1954 and 1957, but I received one that seems to be ABS.

[paul-f]

Paul F's site shows they were built between 1954 and 1957, ...

The date for the 95C is somewhat elusive.  The current thinking is: "95C Apparatus Blanks appeared in about 1957..."

   http://www.paul-f.com/500blanks.html

The apparatus blanks seem to have missed getting the date stamps found on most other Western Electric components.

We can date the 95A (came out with the 500) and 95B (came out with the 554), but we have found no similar reported event for the 95C. It appears to have been mainly a cost saving evolutionary step, possibly related to the change to ABS.

As we have found, the change to ABS was not an event but a gradual transition, making it difficult to pin down.

Dating is therefore based on observing 95Cs in date matching sets, realizing that changing the apparatus blank is simple, so we can't be totally sure the blank belongs to the same date range as the other parts in the phone.  The more observations we collect, the better the guess.

Did your 95C come from a date matching set?

[unbeldi]

1957 is wrong.  It should be more like 1967.

Here is a brief summary in my notes:

==Apparatus Blank No. 95==
...
BSP C16.002 Issue 7 (1962) does not list the part number 95C, only 95B.  It refers to C18.053, of which Issue 2 (Nov. 61) only shows the 95B. Section 502-510-100 Issue 6 12-67 was reissued because, ... "Add the 95C Apparatus Blank". among other reasons. But 95B does not seem to be MD yet.


So, to answer Christians question, the 95B may well have been available still in 1967.

[WEBellSystemChristian]

The blank is a 95B, but it came by itself, so I have no idea when exactly it was produced.

Unbeldi, you may be correct about the 1967 date. I quick checked some 500 housings for those notches behind the dial opening, and a 9-66 housing has the notches, while a 3-68 does not.

I'm installing it in a 1957 500 anyway. It's still more original than the dial I had in it before, and it 'looks the part' sitting on a shelf.

[paul-f]

1957 is wrong.  It should be more like 1967.

Here is a brief summary in my notes: ...

Good catch, Karl. My notes and the Singing Wires article also say 1967. The site had a transcription or typographical error, which has been fixed.