My AE (Almost) Birthday Phone

[phoneguy06]

The other day, I was making my usual rounds at the local antique market, when lo and behold, my eyes fell upon something for which I've been searching for a while now. I realise that the phone in the photos is nothing but an AE 80E, but I had been looking for one of these without much success, which surprised me given that they were manufactured until the 80s in a plant in Lethbridge, Alberta, a city only hours away from me. Imagine my further surprise when I turned the phone over and noticed that it had a manufacture date stamped on it of November 15, 1980, only about two weeks before I was born. I believe Dennis has posted photos of the interior of one of his 80Es, but if not, I'll include some here for the curious. Unfortunately, as you'll see, being a child of the 80s usually means I'm stuck with a cheap piece of plastic, but that's the only sort of standard desk phone AE produced by that time.

[Dennis Markham]

You are very lucky to have found a phone so close to your birthday.  Congratulations on your find.  I had no idea they were still being manufactured that late.  It looks to be in very good condition as well.

[McHeath]

Nice looking phone and a good find.  I've never seen one of these in person.

[phoneguy06]

You are very lucky to have found a phone so close to your birthday.  Congratulations on your find.  I had no idea they were still being manufactured that late.  It looks to be in very good condition as well.

Hi Dennis,

Thanks for the comment; it is kind of amazing that the 80E survived that long, the last ones were in fact manufactured in 1986 which I belive is when AE ceased phone manufacture altogether. I have seen several on eBay from around that time that actually have a factory-installed modular jack on the back, right next to the original opening for the hardwired line cord.

[phoneguy06]

Nice looking phone and a good find.  I've never seen one of these in person.

Thanks McHeath. I got this for a really good price, especially considering that Phoneco (the only place I've seen that has them besides eBay), wants a whopping $75 for one that's been cleaned up . These were interesting because they could be converted to touch calling without actually having to change the case, and thus represented a cost-savings to both AE and the telcos who deployed them.

[mienaichizu]

does your AE80E has a cardboard faceplate? mine has, I wonder if it was made like that

[jsowers]

does your AE80E has a cardboard faceplate? mine has, I wonder if it was made like that

I've seen sets of cardboard faceplates for AE 80Es in all sorts of 1970s colors, in auctions. Screaming orange and avocado green and colors like that. A selling point was that it could be instantly harmonized with your room and changed if you changed your decor.

Also, they came in a much more limited array of housing colors. Maybe ivory, black, white and light beige, but I don't know that for sure. I only remember seeing ivory, white, and black. And it stands to reason that the light-colored ones came with the replacement faceplates but not the black ones, but again I'm not sure about that. If anyone happens to know, please fill us in.

[foots]

These phones were also available in beige.

[phoneguy06]

does your AE80E has a cardboard faceplate? mine has, I wonder if it was made like that

Yes, my 80E does indeed have a cardboard "face mat" as AE/GTE called them, that is removable and changeable, which I am actually planning to do, as the one that's currently on this phone is somewhat damaged. Your phone was definitely made that way. GTE sold the face mats through their phone stores, and as jsowers mentioned, this was a major selling point of these phones.

[Phonesrfun]

Seems like someone with Photoshop and some extra time on their hands could make a template to be printed out on semi-gloss photo paper and an ink-jet printer. 

-Bill