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Western Electric 1A1 or 1D1

Started by shersh, May 20, 2013, 11:03:47 PM

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shersh

I have put my trusty pay phone back into service.  I obtained this phone back in 1975 as a prop for a high school production.  Once the show closed I drilled out the top lock and figured out how to hook it up to my phone line.  It hung in my parents basement for 20 years until the house was sold.  It spent the next 21 years in my basement gathering dust until I decided it was high time to give it a place of honor in the Garage Mahal.

I believe this is a fairly complete from 1973. Several of the parts are stamped 1A and have 2/73 and 3/73 date tags.  I have it mounted with the back bracket.  It has some good "patina" including the rough job I did on the upper lock surround as a teenager.  I have put a dial gizmo rotary to tone converter in line with the circuits feeding my rotaries and this phone is working great.  Ringing and dialing out like a house phone.  I have been toying with the idea of putting some sort of coin control in but I will need to learn more about how the totalizer works.  I will ask those questions in a separate post.

The housing stamp says 1A1 but the signage is all dial tone first.  I assume the phone is from the area I grew up in which was all dial tone first in 1973.  SO what have I got here, a 1A1 converted to 1D1?  There are no switches on the totalizer nor are there alternate plug positions so I have ruled out 1C1. 

This forum is a great resource and I am interested in all you can tell me about this phone.

Scott

ESalter

Very nice phone!  Definitely looks like a true 1A1 to me.  It has a 1A marked validator as well as the early totalizer, which, like you said doesn't have the switch to go between CF and DTF.  Definitely a very nice phone.  My guess is if it was a prop, it just doesn't have the original or correct instruction cards.

---Eric

shersh

Thanks,  One other clue there is no rubber surround on the armored cable by the handset.  Does that mean anything regarding the vintage?

I remember the pay phones of my youth did not have this as we used to yank on the armor by the phone or the housing to separate it.  We would then short the handset wires with a pin to get a dial tone.  This was on touchtone phones which we had to dial with the hookswitch because the keypad would not work.

ESalter

I don't have any handsets without a rubber boot.  The only ones I've seen like that are on 3 slots.  I'm sure someone else here has more info about when the boots came out.  The oldest handset we have is a gray one like that on our recently acquired green 1A1 from 1966, it has a black boot.

---Eric