Very Unique Princess ???

[HowardPgh]

The cutout for the fingerstop looks like its in the Automatic Electric dial position. Maybe there was an adapter to fit an AE dial in there.  Does this predate the Starlite phone?

[Stormcrash]

I think that shell is for a Stromberg Carlson Petite (Princess) phone. The SC Petites I've seen use a dial with an AE fingerstop position rather than a WE position like the Princess and ITT Cinderella

[markosjal]

I have said it before and I will say it Again.....

Some small rural telcos did their own refurbishing, swapping parts with whatever they could get.. I have seen many of these that come from these telcos that Have "ITT" on handset with a Western Electric base.

WHo were these telcos?

Conteintal Telephone Co
Beaver Creek Cooperative Telephone Company
Mollala Rural Telephpone Co
Colton Telephone Company
Many more

The last three companies served only a single small town.

Just 2 months ago I passed on the purchase of a 500 set that was in perfect condition. The base said ITT and the handset said Stromberg Carlson. The pieces were a perfect color match however . It was also stamped with the name of one of these last three small telcos on the bottom.

In fact if I dig hard , I think I have one 500 with a placard on bottom that says property of "Pioneer Telephone Co, Philomath, OR"  and it is one of these mixed units SC/ITT, ITT/WE, or WE/SC.

It would not surprise me at all to see that this princess came from  a small telco that did their own refurbishing. This is also why I always preserve the original number card (under whatever number card I install) , to help me to later determine a phone's origin. Even though we have new area codes now, 9 times out of 10 I can extrapolate the city / state, and original telco  from the phone number in my region of the USA.

Attached is a Litton BTS Princess phone that I gave to a client. Note the beige plungers

[Jim Stettler]

I have seen generic princesses with a hole for a 3" dial, but no finger-stop cutout.
I have a generic princess that had a old induction coil in it vs a network.

I have a multi swirl princess type housing w/o finger-stop cutout. Someone put a design-line 3" touchpad (celebrity style) in it.
I assumed it was WE until I tried to put in a standard WE princess dial.
Jim

[Key2871]

I bought a aqua princess, I swore was a Western, even had a Western dial in it. I was so happy I grabbed it and paid the 2 bucks. Then later I started looking at it closer. It was a mixture of Western, ITT and I presume Stromberg. And the base had no ringer it wasn't even a Western base and the dial hole had the notch for the dial filed into it and there was another molded notch much lower like AE.
But I think it was a Stromberg case it had no marking.
And the base had a slight marking Cinderella. I'm guessing is ITT.
I've heard of them but never saw an actual, and Continental was a Telco just north of the town I got that set in. Which was Bell, Western.