United States Telephone Company - Model US4

[southernphoneman]

Hi all,i need help in identifying this phone.it was made in Japan and it has Model DO-1 on it.can anyone tell me maybe what year it was made? the photo below is a picture just like the one I have.

[LarryInMichigan]

Boatloads of those imitation Danish phones were made in the late 1960s-early 1970s.  Some of them contain Western Electric components.  They are generally only worth what the parts are worth.  I bought one once for $10 to get the WE dial, network, transmitter, etc..

Larry

[G-Man]

These were cheap Asian imports made over the course of many years starting in the late 1960 - early1970's.

Companies such as Grandcom, Metrotel used to advertise them in magazines and catalogs. I know that a couple of the catalogs were scanned and made available on the TCI listserve and may have even ended up in the TCI Library.

[WesternElectricBen]

I think they are called kujubanhovens

[poplar1]

The original design that these are copied from was from Denmark. The Danish ones  have the call meters on the top right.

Starting in the 1960s, there were complete working knockoffs with 4-prong plugs for sale in places like Woolworth's. These were not authorized by the phone company. Unless you collect these for some reason, they're not too desirable.

Then there were the shells that you bought then had the phone company install WE parts which you then leased---you owned only the outside parts. The earliest ones were made by the "United States Telephone Company"...in Japan. The same WE kits (F-56660) also fit other shells such as the later ATC/Decotel line which includes both phones that look like this and also Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog and others. As Larry pointed out, these are a good source of WE parts: 6-type dials, contact rings for T-1 transmitters, etc.

Here is a United States Telephone Co. set currently on Ebay; hopefully, the seller isn't still paying $4.50 a month to rent the WE parts.

"Authentic-Vintage-Duchess-French-Style-Princess-telephone-Rotary-Dial-phone-US"

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151090345482

[poplar1]

Is yours like this one Mo posted a while back?

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=8513.0

[southernphoneman]

Is yours like this one Mo posted a while back?

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=8513.0

it is similar to it, my camera is down right now, but I will post a photo of it soon, but it doesn t have western electric parts, the face of the dial resembles that of an automatic electric. the interior doesn't have any identifying markings that I can see. thank you.