Western Electric D1 Factory Old Brass Green Thermoplastic F1

[Doug Rose]

A collector asked me for pictures of this and I thought I'd share it with you. This is a Western Electric D1 202 Factory Paint Old Brass desk set. Found with a great WE Green Thermoplastic F1. This does make a striking combination. It would have had a matching painted F1, but this is how I found it. The paint is just superb, brass color with black accent to make it "old brass." WE paint -6. These old painted sets usually dud not stand the test of time and use. This is an eye catcher....Doug

[Contempra]

Very nice phone Mr.Rose . ;)thanks for the pics. Do you have the wiring plan ?..

[Jim Stettler]

Doug,
That set looks pewter to me. I have a pewter one with a green plastic handset and  straight matching cords.

I picked it up at a phone show and it has been in the hands of collectors for over 40 years. The previous owner felt it was a factory produced set, probably special order. My impression is the same.
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Now that I see another example, I wonder if they rebuilt some of the early continentals with coordinating plastic handsets as a standard rebuild.

Mine is still packed away from the move last year, But I am curious about how close the date stamps are.
Jim

[WEBellSystemChristian]

That is a really cool color combination. The green handset next to the "old brass" body reminds me of corroded copper, like the Statue of Liberty.

[Doug Rose]

Jim...I'll get pictures in natural light this weekend, it is definitely old brass. I'd love to see your pewter D1 if you can unbox it.

Christian....thanks...Doug

[Jim Stettler]

 I saw the box  that I think it is in recently, I will be moving around boxes of phones  this weekend and I expect it will show up. My current issue is trying to locate my camera, I found it in an odd spot a couple of months ago and put it somewhere "safe".I just can't recall where the "safe" spot is.
Jim

[DavePEI]

I saw the box  that I think it is in recently, I will be moving around boxes of phones  this weekend and I expect it will show up. My current issue is trying to locate my camera, I found it in an odd spot a couple of months ago and put it somewhere "safe".I just can't recall where the "safe" spot is.
Jim

Those "safe" spots are the worst. Ask you wife - it may be located next to "Sock Heaven", the place mismatched socks go to die!

Dave

[G-Man]

That is a really cool color combination. The green handset next to the "old brass" body reminds me of corroded copper, like the Statue of Liberty.

Well most would call the "corrosion" on the Statue of Liberty its patina.

It's interesting that "In the early 1980s, it was found to have deteriorated to such an extent that a major restoration was required. While the statue was closed from 1984 to 1986, the torch and a large part of the internal structure were replaced." Bell Labs metallurgists were called on board the team to best decide on how to do the historic restoration.

One of the primary problems, aside from replacing the rusted rivets, was how to match the damaged copper sheets with replacement that had the same patina. Bell Labs researched it and found the original copper mine was located in Norway and had long been shut down.

Of course this presented quite a quandary since using sheets of copper that was mined elsewhere would have made the Statue look like a patchwork quilt.

Bell Lab's Murray Hill facility also has the largest copper-roof in the world. One day while standing outside of the building housing their laboratory, one of the metallurgist looked up at the copper sheets that the roof was constructed from and immediately saw that the patina looked similar to the Statue's.

After some research they found that the buildings were constructed in the '30s and the copper sheets were made of the same ore from the same Norwegian mine. The Labs ended up contributing the needed sheets of copper for the restoration.