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Look what "phone Santa" brought me...

Started by phoneguy06, April 08, 2009, 11:55:50 PM

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phoneguy06

It's a brand new Cortelco red 500. Yes, I know most of you don't like the modular inserts, and the flimsiness of new 500s, but come on, who doesn't like red?! What's more, this is probably the only new red 500 I'll see in the near future. This phone is interesting for a couple of reasons:

1. It's base plate and the box it was packed in are those of an ash-coloured July 2003 volume-control handset model of the kind that McHeath and I bought recently.

2. Only the case is stamped "Cortelco", the handset is unmarked, as you'll see in my photos, but the parts in the handset are definitely late Corteco receiver and transmitter elements.

I have never seen a new red Cortelco 500 in my years on eBay, maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough, but they must be fairly rare. I also wonder if towards the very end, Cortelco simply used the same base plate and components for all of the colours they were still manufacturing, with or without the volume-control handset. Anyway, one sees something new in phone land every day!


AET

Very nice!  Gotta wonder what happened to the parts surplus.  Especially the dial cards!  You'd think there'd be a lotta those laying around.  Definately a beautiful red phone.  I'd like to have one just for daily use, nothing like people seeing one of those in your house, thinking it's from yesteryear, and you get to tell them it's probably newer than their house phone!
- Tom

mienaichizu

I like the color

It doesn't matter to me if it is modular or hardwired, unless its a rotary phone for everyday use

Dan/Panther

If you are going to get rid of the box, send it my way.
I'd like to try to duplicate the insides.
D/P

The More People I meet, The More I Love, and MISS My Dog.  Dan Robinson

Tonyrotary


McHeath

Oooo, you are making me jealous!  I have a real soft spot for these late model 500s, they really came too late to the party and one wonders why in the world they were still being made in the 21st century.  And you found a bright red one!  Geesh.  What's the date on it?  Interesting how the handset does not have the volume control that the ash colored ones we found on e-bay a while back have.  Any markings of note inside it?


GG



Nice find there.   Presumably that has the new Cortelco ringer, which I actually think is a pretty cool design because it makes the volume control more effective than on previous ITT ringers. 

I have two or three "ash" colored ones from the very last production (dated 2006); wish I'd managed to find a red one like that.  When I talk to people about eco-industrial design (sustainable design), I like to bring two examples: WE 500 dated 1952, Cortelco 500 dated 2006, all major subassemblies fully interchangeable across the 54-year time span, and they both sound better than cellphones. 

Cortelco still makes the 2500 in red (and in a handful of other basic colors: white, black, ash, brown), with a nice built-in receiver amplifier (with a discrete volume control in the handset).  Everyone reading this needs to go scoop up a few of those while they still exist, otherwise you'll be regretting not having done so.  There is always a tendency to take-for-granted stuff that is still being produced, until it's no longer.  While we're at it, don't forget the 3554 wall set, which is basically a rotary 554 wall set with a touchtone dial and a round dial plate fitted into it. 

Jim Stettler

I am surprised to see a Marked "cortelco" housing, I thought all cortelcos were unmarked housings.
Jim
You live, You learn,
You die, you forget it all.