500 Field Trial Set

[cihensley@aol.com]

I am in the process of scanning some Bell Laboratories Record issues for the TCI library, and thought you might interested in the cover of one of the issues. The cover is described: "The new 500-type telephone....Several thousand of these sets have now been installed for field trial." Note the operator/Z configuration. I believe one of the CRTF members has or had one of these sets.

Chuck

[TelePlay]

Dan/Panther got one off of eBay for $224 in 2010. It's the subject phone of one of the largest topics on the forum, "Now the Story Can be Told - 1949 WECo 500 Set" read over 197,000 times.

     http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=2394.0


This link is to this photo of it.

     http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=2394.msg32253#msg32253



Lot of stuff in that topic but is does seem he owned/owns the phone.

And this link is to this after photo

     http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=2394.msg100735#msg100735

[Dan/Panther]

Yes, I still have the phone right where it is, in the same cabinet. I have been a collector, hoarder for years, and that is definitely the crown jewel of them all.

D/P