The Good Old Days! Old Radio Shack Catalogs

[DavePEI]

Radio Shack in its Heyday - I bought a few of these years ago!

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalogs/1967_small/

See page 73!

To view all catalogs, see:

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html

Dave

[Doug Rose]

Very cool Dave. Did RS issue all there phones under the "Standard" label. I have seen PTT phones in box that were "Standard" but never a 302. ...Doug

[DavePEI]

Very cool Dave. Did RS issue all there phones under the "Standard" label. I have seen PTT phones in box that were "Standard" but never a 302. ...Doug

Hi Doug:

To be honest, I really don't remember. By the way if you go back to their main index, you can see many more years of catalogs. When I was young, I bought many 302s, 352s and 500s from RS... Most, if not all were Northern Electric... I suspect in the US, those distributed by them were WE. As these were refurbished, wonder if they meant standard as in "the usual"?

Fun taking a trip back in the time machine! I could lose myself for days in those old catalogs. Same thing with old Allied and Lafayette catalogues!

Dave

[wds]

That sure brings back some memories.  I used to (and still do) love those receivers and speakers with the walnut cases.  Really dressed up a room.

[Wallphone]

At the bottom of page 73 they show what they call a Standard type Western Electric dial but it sure looks like an AE dial to me.
Doug Pav

[GG]

Re. Doug Rose: 

"Standard" used as an adjective, frequently appeared in ads for telephones from all kinds of private suppliers back in the day, and roughly meant "this phone will work on one-party lines with bridged ringing" or "this component will work with ordinary phones."

"Standard" in the little circle on the side of one of the three types of Dutch PTT phones sold by RS in the early 70s, was "Standard Telephones & Cables" or its Dutch equivalent, an ITT subsidiary that made these phones for the Dutch PTT. 

The other two types of Dutch phones that RS sold (all in the same boxes, these were all considered "generic" phones) were Ericsson and HEEMAF.  How to tell the difference:

Ericsson: the dial always has the numerals on the rotating fingerwheel rather than beneath the holes.  The hookswitch plungers were round.

HEEMAF: the hookswitch plungers were rectangular and if you look closely, have the HEEMAF logo on them.  The phone has a look that many have compared to resembling the locomotives of the era, with a rounded area below the dial, blending with a wedge-shape to the front of the lower housing as seen from the side.

Standard: the hookswitch is a single bar across the top of the cradle, and there are two round metal badges on the sides of the phone, one saying PTT and the other saying Standard with a bell-shaped design behind the word. 

The interior components of all of these are very similar (all being made to Dutch PTT specifications), with all wiring going to a rear terminal strip having 13 terminals if I recall correctly (I'm not going to disassemble one right now to verify the number of terminals:-). 

The transmitters & receivers were interchangeable across all three types.  The handsets were as well.  The Ericsson and Standard handsets looked very much like WE F-1 handsets, the HEEMAF handset had a rectangular handle cross-section.  You may find examples of phones by one maker with handsets by another and transmitter/receiver by others. 

The dials were specific to each type of phone and not interchangeable.  Only HEEMAF used other makers' dials, very often DFG (the earlier ones with the plastic hex-nut in the center) or Krone (the later ones with clear fingerwheels), both dials imported from Germany.

When hooked up to ring, these phones will jingle when you dial from another extension on the same line.  To fix that you need to either add a bias spring to the ringer, or a pair of 70-volt zener diodes rated at 1 watt or higher, back-to-back, in series with the wire that is associated with the ringer (there are schematics inside the phones to make this easier to figure out). 

[AE_Collector]

Fun taking a trip back in the time machine! I could lose myself for days in those old catalogs. Same thing with old Allied and Lafayette catalogues!

Dave

I wish I had my old Lafayette catalog too! Are they "on-line" like the radiio Shack Catalogs?

Terry

[GG]

As far as I know, Lafayette went out of biz years ago.

When they were around, they also sold reconditioned 302s, and they also sold Tesla dial phones in the early 70s, with US plugs & dial numberplates on 'em.  I'll post a picture one of these days.

[DavePEI]

Fun taking a trip back in the time machine! I could lose myself for days in those old catalogs. Same thing with old Allied and Lafayette catalogues!

Dave

I wish I had my old Lafayette catalog too! Are they "on-line" like the radiio Shack Catalogs?

Terry

Hi Terry:

In a Google search, I found a lot of pages which showed the old Lafayette Catalog covers, but no sites with browseable catalogs such as the Radio Shack site. If anyone finds a site which allows you to actually browse the old catalog pages, I would love to know, too!

Dave