One Can Only Hope.

[Dan/Panther]

I found this on Ebay yesterday, Bid $97.00 for it and won it for $9.95. I can only hope it's what it appears. The soft center is a real encouraging point.
The body looks way to shiny, I hope it's not painted, but rather just highly polished. The dial face looks original.

D/P

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120968328942

[AE40FAN]

Dan I was tempted to bid on that myself!!  It looks soft plastic you can see some warpage around the dial.  Please let us all know.  Either way you can't go wrong for 10 bucks right?

[Dan/Panther]

That was my thoughts exactly.
The soft plastic dial center, I can use on another phone, if it turns out to be a later model phone, but my experience is the dial center is usually one of the first parts to suffer damage. It alone is worth almost the price I paid for the entire phone and the dial may be vintage also. So that said, it being intact, is very encouraging. The handset cord appears maybe a later replacement.

Dan

[Dennis Markham]

From the photos Dan, it looks like a hard center finger wheel.  The dial bezel indicates it has the much later #9 dial.  You can tell this by the narrow opening for the finger stop.  The earlier #7 dial bezel has the larger opening with the finger stop support below the finger stop.  The plastic however may be the coveted soft plastic Mahogany.    The housing almost looks like it was painted.  But for $10 it's worth taking a chance.

[Dan]

hope you get an oldie sir!!!

[Dan/Panther]

Dennis;
Now looking at a blown up shot of the finger wheel, it does appear as though it has a sticker covering the center. At first looks, it appeared to be a soft center fingerwheel.
Also notice the rings around the dial card area, None of the soft centers have those rings.
If nothing special, it certainly won't be the first Pig in a Poke for me . Right now all I have is a Brown ITT mid seventies model, at least now I have a WE.
D/P

[Doug Rose]

Dan...I saw your phone and with the two high flash pictures, I couldn't decide if it was painted or not. Phone and handset look awfully shiny.  I couldn't decide if the bezel was black or brown. I am rooting for you. Picture for posterity...Doug

[Greg G.]

Either way, you can't lose for $9.95.

[jsowers]

I have a brown WE 500 that's a curious mixture of a brown painted (originally white) hard plastic housing, a brown painted (originally white) coil cord and mounting cord, an original soft plastic mahogany brown handset and dial face and a hard center fingerwheel. It's sitting in my office masquerading as a mahogany brown because I don't want to ever put a phone that valuable on my office shelves.

Dan, I hope yours isn't painted. If it is, the paint is in really good shape. Mine is too, except for the mounting cord. They even used a brown Bakelite 283B plug on mine. Mine looks like something someone made out of parts so they would have a brown phone. I think I paid more than you did, but it was a while back.

Let us know what it turns out to be.

[Dan/Panther]

I was really disappointed when I blew up the dial face. I thought it was a soft center, after that rush everything went blurry.
D/P

[Dan/Panther]

One ray of hope on the paint issue. If you look at the two photos one is of a recent post by LM Ericsson. His polene painted Bell System, compared to the same area on the brown phone. Looks quite a bit different.

D/P

[McHeath]

That shell certainly has the right rectangular WE insignia on it to be older.  Too bad about the dial, it looked soft center to me too until I read Dennis's comments and noticed the smaller fingerstop slot.

Still, it's a great price, even if it turns out to be hard plastic.  All I too have in brown is a late 70's ITT 500.

And I don't think the shell is painted based on your pictures here.

[Dan/Panther]

Well.......................What a P.O.S.
It is painted, the handset is ITT. I didn't even bring it into the house.  I threw it into the back of my pickup.
D/P

[Dan/Panther]

Actually it reminds me alot of the brown Princess I bought a couple years back. Also painted. P.T. Barnum must be laughing his butt off.
D/P

[Dennis Markham]

Sorry Dan.  We've all been there.