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1954 WECo 500 with Metal Fingerwheel

Started by Ed Morris, October 23, 2017, 01:12:09 PM

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Ed Morris

I found this Western Electric 500 C/D with metal finger wheel in an antique store in Egg Harbor, WI, earlier this month.  Other than some dirt, a few scratches, and a kinked and cracked handset cord, it looked pretty good.

When I got it home, it actually worked in spite of a rotten handset cord.  I found a new handset cord, and while waiting for it to arrive, I cleaned the base of dust and debris, and polished and buffed the handset and shell with Novus #2.   The dial card had the phone number from Wisconsin, and when I went to replace it, under the one showing, I found the original, with a JAckson exchange.  I also replaced the original line cord with standard 4-prong plug with a modular cord and plug.

Base: 1/54
Shell: 6-53
Network: 425B
Ringer: C4A, dated 1-54
Handset: G1, no date found
Transmitter: T1, dated 12-56, Transmitter cup dated 10-54
Receiver: 44A dated 9-22-53, Receiver cup dated 9-51

Ed

TelePlay

What were you doing in Egg Harbor? I was up there October 5th to the 9th and ate at Casey's Saturday evening.

I didn't know there was a antique store anywhere north of Surgeon Bay that had anything priced in the "I can afford that" range. Stopped going into any of them for that reason. I'm up there every year in October for 20 years or so now.

BTW, nice phone. What did you end up paying for it?

Ed Morris

#2
Wow!  I bet we walked right past each other!  My daughter and her family go there for the Pumpkin Festival most years, and they have been trying to get us to join them.  So this year we went Oct. 6-9.  We all camped just north of Egg Harbor at a campground.  We ate on the patio at an Italian restaurant on Saturday as we had our dog with us.

There are several antique stores just before you get to Egg Harbor on Rt. 42.  I found this phone at Olde Orchard Antique Mall.  There is one vendor there with beautifully restored telephones and radios, priced accordingly.  I prefer to restore my own telephones and radios, though, and found the phone shown above in another booth for $28.  All his items were 20% off, so I ended up paying about $22 for it.
Ed

skyrider


Ed Morris

Ed

Pourme

Very nice phone at a very good price! I paid almost triple that for my 9/52 birthday phone...

Benny
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

Ed Morris

Thanks, Benny.  I wonder how this phone ended up with a receiver cup from 1951 and a 1956 transmitter element.?  Looks like the handset was put together with parts from a from a junk box.
Ed

oldguy

Great looking phone Ed, nice restoration.
Gary

Pourme

If you would perform  WEBellSystemChristian 's Denatured alcohol treatment on that case it would look as good as new! It is truly amazing.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=18850.0
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

Ed Morris

Interesting process.  Is denatured alcohol different from rubbing alcohol?  I use 70% and 90% rubbing alcohol for cleaning.
Ed

TelePlay

Quote from: Ed Morris on October 24, 2017, 07:51:57 PM
Interesting process.  Is denatured alcohol different from rubbing alcohol?  I use 70% and 90% rubbing alcohol for cleaning.

Denatured alcohol is pure ethyl alcohol but with trace amounts of special chemicals added which make it poisonous to drink. There is no water in denatured alcohol out of the can from you local hardware store or Walmart.

Rubbing alcohol is either isopropyl alcohol or ethyl alcohol mixed with water to get the 70% or 90% mixture.

When diluted with water, the alcohol does not have the cutting power as the pure alcohol.

Ed Morris

Thanks guys.  So, are the WECo 500 bodies Tenite?  I'm surprised it was still used in the 50's.  Tenite is prone to shrinking.  Used for radio dial bezels in the 1940's, they have not aged well.

Ed

jsowers

My grandparents had a 1941 Philco almost exactly like that one, but it had AM/SW and its Tenite bezel is shrunken just like that. It spent a few years in a hot attic at my parents' house and that didn't help. Now it's in my basement. They made another model without the Tenite and I have one of those too. It looks as nice as the day it was new.

There were several different forms of Tenite and they got the shrinking under control by the time the 500 set was in full production. I've seen one or two shrunken handsets where the capsules wouldn't come out, but usually it's fine. The WE 500s were Tenite all the way up to 1959 for color and 1965 for black, though there are some exceptions as usual where they used something different.

The Tenite for the 302, which is from the late 1940s and early 1950s, does have a tendency to shrink, especially the ones made in colors. But not as bad as those Philcos.
Jonathan