The 500 that thinks it's a 2500

[phoneguy06]

Hi everyone,

I won the odd-looking 500 set in the photos below on eBay last week for the grand sum of $2, plus a whopping amount of shipping to get it up here to Canada, ironic because it's Canadian-made. What you're looking at is a Northern Telecom QSK500 manufactured in 1974; as you can see, it has a changeable paper facemat, much like the AE80E, and the case of a 2500. Unfortunately, the seller packed it in such a way that the case and faceplate got a hairline crack in them, but otherwise it's in one piece, thank goodness. I have never seen one of these sets, have any of you? I didn't even know they existed, and I'm pretty sure they were a "Made in Canada" design. One learns something new every day in phone land!

[LarryInMichigan]

Perhaps NT ran out of 500 shells and still needed to assemble dial phones, so they cam up with a way to make use of a 2500 shell.

[Craig T]

Your patent date on the bottom of your phone shows a filing date of 1965 and an issue date of 1968.

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=B8FsAAAAEBAJ&dq=U.S.+Patent+3,403,883


It is VERY DRY (all caps worthy even) reading...enjoy 

[McHeath]

Never seen anything like it.  I rather like it, the rotary fills the dial opening well and the round and square shapes seem to nicely complement each other.  (opinion of course)  It would be easy to make one, get a dial blank and cut a hole, eh?

[Phonesrfun]

That is actually what AE did with the AE 80e.

Makes sense.  I wonder why we haven't seen more of them.

-Bill Geurts

[McHeath]

Yes it does make sense, one shell for rotary and touch tone.  Cheaper in the long run I would have thought.

[AET]

I've seen them the other way, touch tone in a 500 shell, but never this way.  I thought it was a GTE at first glance.  Very interesting.  Another one for the 'gotta have' list.

[Jim Stettler]

The following is a "qoute" from 1 of the listservers:

This telephone set was introduced into the US market in 1975 to be in direct competition with the AE Type 80E which was also introduced in 1975. It was available from all Northern distributers, Graybar, Buckeye Telephone Supply, Power and Telephone Supply, North Supply, etc.

It was available in Ash and Warm White only. It was discontinued about 1978 or so, and was only available in hardwired and Quarter Modular versions, rotary dial or Digitone dial. Northern made a "kit of parts" to convert the rotary sets to digitone, it included the dial, face plate, face mats and dial mounting brackets.

I don't think it ever caught on, most phone companies that wanted phones with interchangeable facemats/dials went with the AE Type 80E set, which was available in more colors: Antique White, White, Expresso Brown, Sand Beige, Black and Yellow.

I have seen sets made both in Canada and also at the Nashville, TN plant.

I purchased about 100 or so of these in 1975 to use on our New Customer Owned Leich Type 80 PBX at our Cincinnati Heaqquarters. They were a good phone, but when we converted to touch tone, I went with AE type 80E's in Touchcall because by then the "kit of parts" for conversion had been discontinued. We gave all the Northern sets to employees.... and I didn't keep one for myself:(


Bill Wright
--------------------------------------------

Jim

[phoneguy06]

Hi there again,

I have since e-mailed Bill (the one from the listserv) and asked him how common he thinks these sets are and how often he sees them, and he responded that they're extremely hard to find and that he hadn't seen one since about 1980! Now I think this little thing needs its own insurance policy .