Western Electric D1 Gold Imperial phone finish question

[brenthyatt]

Were these phone plated or painted? I have never seen paint that looks that metallic. Thanks.

[unbeldi]

Were these phone plated or painted? I have never seen paint that looks that metallic. Thanks.

They were rhodium plated as base, and then finished with a gold lacquer.
No doubt the lacquer was a suspension with real gold.

[Kenton K]

Would a clear yellow finish achieve the same gold result? The lacquer just needs to change the color.

-Ken

[unbeldi]

Would a clear yellow finish achieve the same gold result? The lacquer just needs to change the color.

-Ken

The color really is not yellow. It is metallic gold.

[Babybearjs]

can they be replated? I have in that has use wear and just courious about the restoration process?

[rdelius]

You can replate sets. At COT we first used brass but then switched to gold.The original finish on the sets appears to have been sprayed on  or a conductive spray finish and then plated.Sometimes lacquer thinner removes the gold and the set is now silver.The set can only look as good as the preparation to polish for plating

[JimH]

can they be replated? I have in that has use wear and just courious about the restoration process?

I had a metal 302 (my avatar) gold plated to simulate a gold "imperial" 302, some which were apparently made only for presentation phones.  I sent it to New England Chrome Plating, of East Hartford, CT.  They are very nice people.  I got it back with a small rough spot on it, and they had me send it back to them and they smoothed it out and re-plated the metal body for me again, at no extra cost.  The surface is flawless, and I didn't have to strip the paint first, or anything.  I believe it was about $85, but that was about five years ago.

[unbeldi]

can they be replated? I have in that has use wear and just courious about the restoration process?

They were originally NOT plated.  The plating found in some sales today is a later embellishment by after-market sellers.

[unbeldi]

I had one example of these (shown) on which the lacquer was crazed to an amazingly high degree.  I don't know how common this was.  I now actually wish I had kept the set.  It certainly looked unique with its extra effect on light. Glitter phone.

Under higher magnification this is visible in the photo.