FOR SALE on eBay - Western Electric "Patio Phone" - CRAZY LOOKING!

[kleenax]

Just listed this on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230684875657

Supposedly made by Michigan Bell in the late 50's.  Wish someone had a BSP on it!

Ray

[paul-f]

Wish someone had a BSP on it!

I saw a reference to it in some old Illinois Bell PR department files I was allowed to look through (but not take) about 6 years ago.

Have you looked for any surviving Michigan Bell archives or a Detroit-area Pioneer museum?

[GG]

I'm thinking that any of those that exist today were prototypes of some kind, since the hookswitch used ganged microswitches that would have cost more than mass production of a regular production hookswitch contact assembly for this unit.  (Moisture wouldn't be an issue: that #6 dial looks pretty standard, presumably the enclosure itself would have some kind of gasket.)

Also a production model might have solved the issue that exists for these, where the dial door gets in the way of lifting or replacing the handset. 

[Russ Kirk]

Mike Davis - the payphone collector - has one listed on his web page.

http://webspace.webring.com/people/am/mvtel/homepage.html

[Shovelhead]

Some trivia here. That phone was used/assigned in the metro Detroit area per the dial card.

I have a phone book dated December 1958 for the Mayfair exchange. The police and fire numbers were for the Village of Franklin which is next to the city of Birmingham. Both were very affluent areas even in the 1950's.  I did find a listing for the number to a residence. It was not that hard as the Mayfair exchange only used sixteen pages  and it was found under the "D" listings.

The style of the number card makes me think that that was the original  installation of that phone along with the date codes on the components all falling into that time frame.

And the 313 Area Code overlay was a add-on from about 1963 or so. The later cards only had the Area Code preprinted, at least around there at the time.

It would be interesting to find out if the person I am referring to was a Michigan Bell employee.  Not that they got preferential treatment but "sometimes" things happened in their favor. I remember some of the people in the Greenleaf (Farmington) exchange that my mother worked with, but that particular one does not come to mind.

It would be interesting to see if that house has/had a pool or a outside patio along with the old style jack still in place........

[AE_Collector]

I thought we should have at least one picture in this thread for the future once the ebaY listing is gone. The phone didn't sell at $247.50 as it didn't make the reserve.

Terry

[kleenax]

I thought we should have at least one picture in this thread for the future once the ebaY listing is gone. The phone didn't sell at $247.50 as it didn't make the reserve.

Terry

Terry;

It did sell (after the auction) for my reserve price of $450.00. Additionally, if anyone here wants to ever see photos of any of my postings, or needs phone photos of "something", I have GOBS. I ALWAYS take high-rez photos of all of my finds, and am happy to share.

Regards,

Ray