1984 Western Electric 500

[McHeath]

I've posted some pics of this phone before, but one of our members asked me to put up some more so he could compare it to earlier WE 500s.  This phone was bought by me in 1986, it was new in the box and they had lots of them, it was a K-Mart type store that was going under.  I picked Ivory as I've always liked the warm yellow/creme of it and my folks had one as well, but I recall they had reds, blues, greens and blacks as well.  (In hindsight I should have bought one of them each)

This phone is pretty much untouched, I've never even really polished or cleaned it much.  It's been used off and on since bought, and I think I paid about 17 dollars for it, but I might be mistaken about that.

I think it was a couple of years after 84' that AT and T stopped producing the 500, and this one is still labeled Western Electric which is cool.

[McHeath]

More pics.

[McHeath]

Some of the dates on the handset parts are from 85', which is interesting.  I guess they made in the base in 84' and the handset a year or so later.  Must not have been much demand for a 500 in that time period. 

[AET]

Very nice to look at a great Western Electric from the end.  Awesome story how you got it too!  It's interesting to look how the later ones were configured.  But they don't look as bullet-proof as the prior generation.

[bingster]

What's that inside the handle part of the handset?  It looks like shiny clear plastic.

[Dennis Markham]

They started putting in a piece of styrofoam instead of "cotton acoustical barriers".

[McHeath]

Yeah it's a long strip of styrofoam in the handset instead of cotton.  Seems to work okay.  As for the phones overall durability, it certainly is cheaper in some ways, the network for example, and the plastic shell is thinner and has the screws just going into the plastic.  But, it's worked fine so far, and it was a daily driver for a good ten years when I first got it, then relegated to extension phone status, and now the last year it's often on the shelf waiting it's rotation in to duty.  It has been dropped a couple of times, once last year.  Back in college days it had the handset slammed down hard more than a few times.  (ah, youth)  It keeps on ticking, and has outlived it's replacement phones, cordless this and thats which all went dead sooner or later.