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The CRPF "Bad Packing" awards

Started by Dan, March 01, 2009, 04:54:43 PM

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Dennis Markham

I'm glad you got SOME satisfaction, John.  But as you said, it's too bad that something that survived this long became damaged from poor packing when it could have been avoided.  Unfortunately this thread will continue to grow in the future............

~Dennis

dsk

This is definitely not a winner of bad packing, more a recepie of good packing. The box containing one Bakelite LB telephone filled half of the trunk in my car. The telephone witch I took a chance on is a tabletop magneto telephone designed in 1938 for military use, it has r parts, the phone, the battery and connection box and the handset. Pretty ugly, but war, and post war history from Norway.

Not my best buy, it was not complete. But the seller did probably not know, but he packed it well.

dsk


compubit

Add this payphone to the list...

The handset was destroyed - someone loaded the phone in the box and put some flat styrofoam pieces around it...  Right now, plugging the attached cable in yields nothing, but that may be a function of the damaged handset.

The phone is an AT&T 1D2C4-03 Custom Manufactured in Taiwan-R.O.C. for AT&T, 5-96, so it's not a "classic", per se - not even the WE touch pad...  I got it for cheap, so will probably use it for swapping out various boards (and possibly my own controller - Ethernet Payphone???).

The last picture is from the eBay auction - it shipped taped exactly as shown...

Jim
A phone phanatic since I was less than 2 (thanks to Fisher Price); collector since a teenager; now able to afford to play!
Favorite Phone: Western Electric Trimline - it just feels right holding it up to my face!

markosjal

#423
here is what I got today. As soon as I got it delivered I knew it was not right by how it all moved inside the box.

Maybe he thought the cords would coushin the phone?
Phat Phantom's phreaking phone phettish

AL_as_needed

The handset cord loops are pretty squishy.....

I feel in general  when we score a good deal on a phone from somewhere, its mainly because the selling party is not a phone person. Reasonable to assume they would know less about phone shipping if they don't care that much for the phone.
TWinbrook7

WEBellSystemChristian

I bought a fairly early White AE multiline on eBay recently. I sent my usual packing instructions to the seller--making sure to tell them to pack the handset and base in separate bubble wrap layers--and, in a very condescending way, told me that he was a professional, and wrapping telephones are "mere child's play" to him.

Well, let's see what he did wrong. First off, let's see what Automatic Electric did right...they built their phones like ammo cans. This guy pretty much disregarded my shipping instructions. He put the phone in a big box and had it wrapped enough that it didn't move around inside, but put the handset on top of the base with the receiver cap resting on the edge of the fingerwheel! >:( The handset and base were wrapped in the same bubble wrap cocoon, which could have easily shattered that very hard to find fingerwheel.

Fortunately, no damage...not even a crack. I took pictures of how I received it directly out of the bubble wrap. He even crammed the handset and line cord together in the back. ::)
Christian Petterson

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right" -Henry Ford

Pourme

All that clean living paid off with good Karma, Christian. Nice phone. I noticed it has one chrome plunger and one black one...

Benny
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

rdelius

The plungers are supposed to not match. One will hang up all connections and the other will release the caller on hold with out hanging up the other party.a type 47 works the same.

markosjal

Quote from: WEBellSystemChristian on March 07, 2018, 06:33:53 PM
I bought a fairly early White AE multiline on eBay recently. I sent my usual packing instructions to the seller--making sure to tell them to pack the handset and base in separate bubble wrap layers--and, in a very condescending way, told me that he was a professional, and wrapping telephones are "mere child's play" to him.

Well, let's see what he did wrong. First off, let's see what Automatic Electric did right...they built their phones like ammo cans. This guy pretty much disregarded my shipping instructions. He put the phone in a big box and had it wrapped enough that it didn't move around inside, but put the handset on top of the base with the receiver cap resting on the edge of the fingerwheel! >:( The handset and base were wrapped in the same bubble wrap cocoon, which could have easily shattered that very hard to find fingerwheel.

Fortunately, no damage...not even a crack. I took pictures of how I received it directly out of the bubble wrap. He even crammed the handset and line cord together in the back. ::)

It is a good looking phone. Lucky for you no breakage.

I am interested to in what you all the hard to find fingerwheel. Is there a pic of one of these somewhere?
Phat Phantom's phreaking phone phettish

WEBellSystemChristian

Quote from: Pourme on March 07, 2018, 07:13:57 PM
All that clean living paid off with good Karma, Christian. Nice phone. I noticed it has one chrome plunger and one black one...

Benny
Yep, the black bakelite plunger lifts the handset up when one of the three "hold" buttons is pressed. It's pretty comical to watch the handset spring off the cradle when you press a button. I laughed the first time it happened! ;D
Christian Petterson

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right" -Henry Ford

markosjal

Quote from: WEBellSystemChristian on March 07, 2018, 08:22:54 PM
Yep, the black bakelite plunger lifts the handset up when one of the three "hold" buttons is pressed. It's pretty comical to watch the handset spring off the cradle when you press a button. I laughed the first time it happened! ;D

No taking another call while one is on hold then?
Phat Phantom's phreaking phone phettish

AE_Collector

#431
The interconnect is you CAN'T hang the handset up without it mechanically knocking any held lines off of hold. This is because there is no key equipment to run the AE87's, they have three line buttons and three hold buttons. A resistor is placed across the line in the phone to hold a call and you can't have that left across the line inadvertently.

So, you can have two or even three calls all held at the same time, just don't put the handset back in the cradle. Then if making a call while other lines are held and you need to hang up to get a new dial tone, use the plunger button that ISN'T linked to the hold mechanism. That's why they are either a chrome one and a Bakelite one OR newer 87's had a clear and a red plastic plunger.

Nice score Christian, we all know how hard it is to find a decent white phone!

As for this fingerwheel, not extremely rare but the most difficult of the three clear plastic AE wheels to find. This type was used briefly in the first coloured plastic AE's and can quickly be identified by the chrome metal ring around the number card. This metal ring is only slightly different (but it IS different) than the black or chrome ring used on earlier AE dials such as on the 40 and 50.

Four pictures of AE Dial fingerwheel & Numbercard rings from old to new:

Black - Old metal type going back to type 24 Dial from 1924.
Ivory - First clear fingerwheel for coloured plastic phones
Gray - Type with pin hole to remove it and the card is inside beneath the fingerwheel.
Green - Newest type with centre screw that used the stick on number card.

May have to move this to AE Dial identification topic.

Terry

FABphones

My first experience of bad packing was this week:

A) Phone was posted in a taped up black bin liner.
Some Bubble wrap was around phone - amazingly it survived.

B) Phone in box. Bubble wrap all around but none underneath.
This one was not so fortunate. Crack to bottom edge.

My best packing experience was this week too - seller put a nice thick padded cushion underneath the phone which was so thick and cosy the phone sat inside like in a nest. Plus lots of bubble wrap and handset bubble wrapped separately too. And then she double boxed. Five star packing!  :)
A collector of  'Monochrome Phones with Sepia Tones'   ...and a Duck!
***********
Vintage Phones - 10% man made, 90% Tribble
*************

HarrySmith

Got any pictures? We love pictures.
Harry Smith
ATCA 4434
TCI

"There is no try,
there is only
do or do not"

FABphones

#434
Another bad pack. I explained the packing process twice over to the seller but to no avail.

This is a Bakelite GPO phone which arrived literally wrapped in a thin plastic supermarket shopping bag with two/three layers of bubble wrap for shipping. Many of the bubbles had popped and the phone could be felt through the plastic. Handset wrapped in one layer, placed at the front bottom edge of phone. No box.

Amazingly, no damage.  :o

ETA - if you look carefully at the first photo packaging you can actually see the handset at the front, and the pointed outline of the cradle to top.

Photos:
A collector of  'Monochrome Phones with Sepia Tones'   ...and a Duck!
***********
Vintage Phones - 10% man made, 90% Tribble
*************