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"American Pickers" or "Hoarding Alive?"

Started by poplar1, June 16, 2013, 04:19:40 PM

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poplar1

Yesterday, Bill, Sonny and I headed out to an estate of a guy that used to install mobile phones in Southern Bell and Georgia Power vehicles. This guy had never thrown anything away! We didn't care about all the car parts, plumbing parts, and mobile phone stuff. We were after the new, used and C stock Western Electric phones and parts that have been stored in a 60' by 90' warehouse for the last 40 years or so.

"C'est pas une restauration, c'est une rénovation."--François Martin.

poplar1

Yesterday, Bill, Sonny and I headed out to an estate of a guy that used to install mobile phones in Southern Bell and Georgia Power vehicles. Apparently, he had never thrown anything away! We didn't care about all the car parts, plumbing parts, and mobile phone stuff. We were after the new, used and C stock Western Electric phones and parts that have been stored in a 60' by 90' warehouse for the last 40 years or so.

Bill's wife put him on a strict budget---in other words, she gave him only $100 to spend. I took "the rent money," hoping not to spend it all, but just in case. Sonny drove the getaway car--a 1987 Ford cargo van. There was a cell tower right on the property, and we were told that before they moved from Atlanta, there had been a cell tower in their yard there as well.

When we arrived, the daughter was up on a ladder pulling down cases of 8 each black 500s that had been refurbished in 1964. The 500s were still in their boxes. We wandered around in a daze before we started asking prices. No one knew for sure where the old man had acquired all these phone parts, but like a lot of people who grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s, he had always lived frugally and saved everything.

There were a few plastic bins marked Bell System and instructions to return them to WE on Forrest Road, the downtown Atlanta location of the Distributing House before they moved to Fulton Industrial Blvd. There were some early drum answering machines like the 1-A from the 1950s. A case of 48 NOS yellow 500 housings made in 1966. NOS 701B Princess housings, beige and white dated 1963. NOS fat handset cords for 500s still wrapped in paper--yellow, pink, light gray, dark gray. A ringing machine (with dial tone) from a PBX. Parts from used 202s: 5H dials, 4H dials, E1 handsets, baseplates, plungers---but no D-1 mounts. 653A and 533A metal wall phones with no receivers or mouthpieces. 592 speakerphones dated 1955 new in the box. One refurbished white 500. A few color 554s, new in the box--pink, green, white, beige. 3 hooks for a 55G or 155G pay phone. A 40A dial mount for your desk. A box of JKT station wire (gray, 4-conductor). Some unjacketed triple (3-conductor) ivory station wire with boxes of wire nails for same. New and refurbed Princess phones in the boxes.

Of course, we had to stop putting things in the pile to take, because there was a lot more than we could pay for. I told her to add up what I had so far, and the total was exactly 23 cents more than what I had in my pocket! Bill said that a woman always knows exactly how much money you have in your pocket!
Sonny got a few Western Electric tubes and is going to call his radio collector in Indiana to see if it's worth buying more of them. He's pretty broke after paying for the 26' U-Haul and the movers so he didn't buy anything else. But he has a show coming up in Nashville this week so if Bill and I get busy wiring some phones for him to sell he should do OK.
"C'est pas une restauration, c'est une rénovation."--François Martin.

Dan

"Imagine how weird telephones would look if our ears weren't so close to our mouths." - Steven Wright

MagicMo

Quote from: poplar1 on June 16, 2013, 04:42:04 PM
Bill said that a woman always knows exactly how much money you have in your pocket!

This is so true. Like for instance, I know you have exactly NOTHING in your pocket right now! LOL

I bet your serotonin levels were aplenty! I can only wish for that experience. Good things happen to good people.
Enjoy
Mo
Practice Kindness :)