Ivory Western Electric

[Doug Rose]

Its a really nice phone and I was in the hunt until it went way high. I got a similar NE 302 from Jon Kolger on eBay awhile back. It is pristine with a 5J with a clear finger wheel. Looked very similar to this beauty, but I stole it for $49.99. I was hoping for the same last night. I could not find it on a search but it is on the Forum somewhere. Is it overpriced, probably. Will it be amazing with a little cleanup, you bet. When is the last time you saw one? Really nice phone....Doug

[unbeldi]

.

[Doug Rose]

Found it....looks almost yellow...Doug

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=9558.15

[unbeldi]

Found it....looks almost yellow...Doug

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=9558.15

It's definitely looks like ivory, not yellow. The picture was just taken in too little lighting which enriches the color. Even readjusting the image doesn't make it much better with respect to the background, which unfortunately seems to be a brown.

The ivory of the prewar metal sets is different than the ivory of the Tenite plastic 302 sets.  In fact it is the identical color that was later used again in the ivory 500 sets.  The ivory of the 500 sets is a return to the exact hue of the original metal 302s. I'll have more on that in another post.

There probably was some overlap with plastic housing manufacturing in '42.

[unbeldi]

.

[poplar1]

There may have been overlap of WE black metal and thermoplastic 302 housings in 1942, but not ivory. New, painted metal Ivory, Rose, Blue, Gray-Green, Pekin Red 302s were manufacture discontinued as of 1-2-41 per C30.111, Iss 4--they were replaced by thermoplastic sets. And WR-C30.011, Issue 1, 8-5-42 indicates that "the manufacture of colored station sets has been discontinued." Production resumed in late 1948-early 1949.

However, Northern Electric never made plastic 302 housings in colors other than black. The "Northern Electric" color plastic 302s that have shown up on Ebay lately have been assembled with WE housings and handset handles and caps, and probably WE cords, but the other parts were Northern Electric.

Doug, which company--NE or WE--is marked on the handset?  I was surprised that the Ebay link still works, but, of course, the pictures are gone. http://www.ebay.com/itm/230988535068

[unbeldi]

There may have been overlap of WE black metal and thermoplastic 302 housings in 1942, but not ivory. New, painted metal Ivory, Rose, Blue, Gray-Green, Pekin Red 302s were manufacture discontinued as of 1-2-41 per C30.111, Iss 4--they were replaced by thermoplastic sets. And WR-C30.011, Issue 1, 8-5-42 indicates that "the manufacture of colored station sets has been discontinued." Production resumed in late 1948-early 1949.

Well, I do not believe the timing of publication of BSPs is historically significant w/r/t actual happenings. They could be months off either direction, and sometimes what is written never happened, like the two-tone 302s, most likely.  Other times, what was never written up, happens, like the Imperials and full-color 302s in code-5x colors.

Do these two BSP explicitly state the date these changes happened?

The date 42-08-05 seems to leave the possibility open that both types could possibly have been made in parallel until that year, just like metal housings for blacks sets appear to have been made in parallel in some small quantity.

I think the Telephone Companies ordered products based on quarterly need estimates. Every quarter they had to submit extensive accounting sheets for needed product.  I doubt that product wouldn't be made anymore when a delivery commitment was on the books already.  Any dates may indicate when new orders cannot be accepted anymore, but manufacturing of outstanding product would probably continue and we don't know how long that may have been.

[poplar1]

The 8-5-42 War Restrictions Addendum states that production "has been discontinued," i.e., already past. It also states that there were some remaining stocks on hand. Of course, this may apply only to new sets, and not those remanufactured in the WE repair shops.

There were other reasons for switching from painted metal to thermoplastic housings. On painted sets, if one part needed replacing, the entire set had to be replaced, according to the BSPs. Thermoplastic parts supposedly had better color matches, so that one part could be replaced. Painted sets were a high-cost item.

The dates given are for WE. Northern probably had different date ranges.

[poplar1]

                  3. TELEPHONE SETS

                           3.01    302 type telephone sets of plastic material are now
                                     available in ivory, old rose, dark blue, gray green and
                   pekin red colors as indicated in Table 1(a). The 305 type set
                   is also available in the ivory plastic material. These sets will
                   be furnished in place of the corresponding "painted" sets,
                   parts of which are listed in Table 1(B) for maintenance pur-
                   poses only.

                   C30.011 Issue 4, 1-2-41

[unbeldi]

I have no doubt that those were the plans.
I think what is documented in the BSPs is that a decision has been made, and that the decision has reached the BSP writers. At this point the writers would naturally use the past tense because anyone reading it would happen sometime in the future.
When this actually happened may be a different subject.
Especially during critical times such as the redirection of almost all manufacturing toward military use, I would expect wide discrepancy of technical documentation and field practice. Rarely do we have documentation of the actual management and decision making processes, such as what we do have for the introduction of the 500-sets—even that only conveys an idea of the process.
I think the introduction of the color plastic sets was a process of several years. Recently someone found a blue housing made in 1940, IIRC. I think if the dates on Doug's ivory telephone are reported correctly, then we have to overrule the statements in the BSPs.

But rather than philosophize over the applicability of BSPs in this case, I think, one should first scrutinize the telephone to determine just what it represents.

[poplar1]

Doug's phone is a Northern Electric, so the date ranges may not be the same as for WEs.

The WR- Addendum appears to have been issued specifically to convey the discontinued status of all color sets, since it also contains lists of which color 300-series  sets were already in stock at that time.

[unbeldi]

Doug's phone is a Northern Electric, so the date ranges may not be the same as for WEs.
...

If so, that would be the explanation in this case, indeed.  Do we know whether NECo produced any colored finishes themselves? If they bought all color housings from WECo, it would mean that WECo still made them.

In this context it would also be interesting to examine the metal housings that reportedly were made in 1946 still. This appears as the last year that collectors acknowledge to be the limit. Where those perhaps also assembled into Northern Electric telephones and not WECo products?  Who has one of those?

[poplar1]

1946 Metal Northern Electric:
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=13829.msg146316#msg146316

[unbeldi]

The interesting question is, who made those metal 302 housing installed in Canada?  Did Northern, or Bell Canada, buy existing surplus and recycled metal housings from Western?  The 1947 Northern Electric catalog (T7) does not show any 302s, only Uniphones. Perhaps they just didn't manufacture any themselves, and the ones found were refurbished WECo phones bought by the telephone company directly.

[poplar1]

Northern Electric made Uniphones for the Provincial and independent Canadian telephone companies, and 302s for Bell Canada, so that may explain why only the Uniphones are shown in the catalog. Similarly, the WE and Graybar catalogs show phones and parts without Bell markings and a "W" suffix after the part number, but that doesn't mean that WE  302s with "Bell System" weren't  made by WE.