I found this phone it is a Litton brand according to seller and has no ringer.
Anyone know anything about the Litton phones? It looks like numbers are worn off and i wonder if i would ever find a replacement
http://articulo.mercadolibre.com.mx/MLM-568120489-telefono-antiguo-tipo-princess-70s-_JM
DEAD LINK NOW but, some Pictures a few posts into this topic.
Please remember to post pictures not just links. The Moderators....
This may be an "after market" Princess phone assembled by a company other than Western Electric, Northern Electric, ITT or Stromberg-Carlson. Only the handset is marked "Litton"; so, it's possible that the handset was from a different type phone. Similar "Princess-style" phones were sold by Olson Electronics.
Litton was a division of ITT at one time. I remember them making microwave ovens in the early days. My mom had a Sears microwave made by Litton and it lasted almost 30 years. Heavy as an old color TV.
Litton Data had a plant in Colorado Springs. They mainly filled military contracts.
For anyone interested in the litton phone, what a clustrfrack it is
I did see in the auction page where I bought it that the numbers under dial were worn. I had no idea what I was in for. Where there is normally plastic this was paper stuck on cardboard.
Dial reflects it is a WE from 1959
Network I believe is not normal for a princess? I remember much smaller??? 495A no ITT nor WE marking.
No captive screws on case and very small .
Beige plungers
I agree with Poplar about this set.you might get the number ring by itself and install it on that dial.Might be cheaper. Old phoneworks might have the number rings.We had plenty at COT when we sold out
That dial needs 4 parts totaling over 35 USD . White Backing, Number ring , plastic overlay retainer ring.
It would be nice to preserve the 1959 dial but 35 DOllars for a NOS NE 3300 dial or a lot less for a used WE one . Would be best to find parts that fit the WE 1959 dial, and conform to what WE used on the dials before they were illuminated.
Interesting history about Litton BTS by the way. I have posted some threads elsewhere
Poplar,
this is in no way only a handset swap and there is proof which I can photograph later . The plastic body has no front side slightly recessed rectangle and no the ridge or lip just below the dial on front side. IT is therefore NOT WE plastic or mold. Also note the Beige plungers. I have now done some more investigation and I find it (was before I hot glued a weight in it) be identical to the last princess pics on this page
http://telephone.bouwman.com/Princess.html
with the exception of the dial light. That is a 1960 model mine is 1959 and I think the dial light was added around that time .
What I meant was that possibly only the handset was Litton, but not all the parts. I don't think the baseplate is Western Electric, Northern Electric, ITT or Stromberg-Carlson. The WE bases were gold colored until maybe the 1980s. But the WE Princess sets did have holes for the lamp socket from the 1957 prototypes ("bedroom sets") all the way until late 1982/early 1983, when the lamps were no longer included for the retail sets.
I still think that some company made these knock-off Princess type sets using new bases and a combination of used and new parts. Your 8A Western Electric dial, made in 9-59, has a "1065L" stamp, indicating that it was lubricated at one of the WE repair shops in 1965. Either the independent manufacturer wanted to sell what looked like a "new" phone, or perhaps they were hoping to disguise the fact that they were using some Bell System Property parts, since AT&T never intended for their leased phones to be sold by outside companies. Even in the early 1990s, the scrap lease return phones that AT&T sold to Applied Components, Inc., for 11 cents a pound, could not be sold to anyone in North America, for the first few years of the contract.
http://www.ebay.com/dsc/Telephones/38036/i.html?_from=R40&LH_TitleDesc=1&_nkw=8a+dial&_trksid=m570.l1313&_odkw=8a+dial&_osacat=38036
Thanks Poplar , I bought the first one NE says NOS . Looks great and all I need are the trimmings so hope they fit the WE Dial. I had looked on ebay and thatr must have been added since I last looked.
If you look into the history of Litton BTS it looks like they sued AT&T over interconnectivity issues, meaning that AT&T refused to allow their products to be directly connected on their networks. In one document I read they started using WE components for this very reason, and AT&T still denied their equipment to be directly connected.
I posted some of these links elsewhere here
Although not "technically" WE through and through still an interesting piece of telephony hardware and history
Should they have been a refurbisher for Independents?