I went into my local antique centre the other day and was greeted by the owner, who produced a green 746 from under the counter and asked what I'd give him for it. Apparently he bought it at an auction for £15, which would normally be at least a fiver too much for a 746. However I took pity on him and gave him £17 for it.
It was only when I got it home and started stripping it for restoration that I noticed that it had the old sloping case, and a proper alpha numeric dial surroind. Turning it uoside down I found it's a very early 746 dating from 1967, the first year of production.
Unfortunately the all important dial surround was broken in half and had been reattached to the phone with glue, instead of the proper internally fitted metal clip. Luckily I had another green surround wrongly fitted to a grey N1900 awaiting restoration, so I used that to replace the broken one and also fitted the correct retaining clip from stock.
There were a coupke of cracks on the front cirners of the case which were fixed by chemical welding with acetone. This has shown uo the factbthe case is a bit discoloured, so I'll be doing a full case restoration next. The dial also needs some attention and lubrication. It does make and receive calls though, so I ckeaned up the finger wheel, back plate and label cover amd fitted one of my reproduction dial labels.
One interesting point is the case differs from later 746s in that the button blank is held in by a metal clip (706 fashion) rather than having built in plastic lugs as it did on later models.
I noted the same clip difference on my 1971 green 746, which on reading the thread, so did you back in 2016... ;D
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=7405
Very nice! I love finding first model year phones! Congrats!
Quote from: twocvbloke on April 20, 2018, 10:08:43 AM
I noted the same clip difference on my 1971 green 746, which on reading the thread, so did you back in 2016... ;D
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=7405
I'd totally forgotten I already knew this! ;D
Now, if I remember right, I've also got a red and a black Mk1 746 somewhere. I can't see them on the shelves, so they must be in a box somewhere. I need to dig them out to see if they are the same. The question is did all early 746s have the alpha numeric surround, or was it just some of them? I've certainly got early shape phones that don't have it, but maybe that's just because it got replaced at some point. I also need to find a way to make a proper reproduction of the back painted plastic rings because I'm running out! Are any parts producers out there reading this who would like to take this job on? Whoever does it I'm sure they'd sell quite a few, judging by the number of those nasty screen printed clip on ones that are out there.
The two tone greens are my favourite 746! Not many showing up here in Canada or the USA though a two tone brown one did materialize close to me recently.
Terry
Terry, there's no such thing as a two tone brown one. They did do a chocolate brown colour which was added to the standard colours in the 1980s and called the 'Yeoman'. Technically it was an 8746 because it had a new style plug on it. That phone was all the same shade though. I think what you saw was probably a two tone grey one that had reacted badly to sunlight. The ABS plastic yellows, which turns grey phones a sort of dirty pond-water brown colour. It also turns the 'concord blue' phones a bottle green, which makes people thing there is a single colour dark green phone too. There isn't, it started out blue! Unlike the grey ones, the blue ones actually look quite nice in dark green though.
There was a later modification to the two tone green and two tone greys where they started making the dial surround the same colour as the case.
I also hear there were plens to make a two tone blue, but that never happened. I think it would have looked quite nice though.
Yeah I knew it was really called two tone gray but I always wind up calling it two tone Brown. Elephant gray and some other colour?
Terry
Quote from: AE_Collector on April 20, 2018, 05:28:09 PM
Yeah I knew it was really called two tone gray but I always wind up calling it two tone Brown. Elephant gray and some other colour?
Terry
Yes, I can't remember the name of the other grey either.
Here's a "two-tone brown" AE80 I am trying to sell on FB Marketplace locally.... dark brown housing is painted.
Terry
Quote from: andy1702 on April 21, 2018, 05:09:10 AM
Yes, I can't remember the name of the other grey either.
I think the other grey is Post Office Grey, but can't be sure of that, I know the 80s re-styled version (where they replaced the Elephant grey) is called "New grey", making the phones look more like the french Socotel S63 in colour... :)
Quote from: twocvbloke on April 21, 2018, 12:21:10 PM
I think the other grey is Post Office Grey, but can't be sure of that, I know the 80s re-styled version (where they replaced the Elephant grey) is called "New grey", making the phones look more like the french Socotel S63 in colour... :)
Did they change it? I thought it was just that the leter ones hadn't had so much time to discolour. The very early diakon ones look a lot like the Socotel shades too.
I have a couple of those Socotels but I've never got around to trying to wire them up for UK use.
Quote from: andy1702 on April 21, 2018, 12:52:05 PM
Did they change it? I thought it was just that the leter ones hadn't had so much time to discolour.
Yeah, it was a short-lived change given that it was so late in the 746's lifetime, so finding one is actually a bit of a rare thing, which is annoying as I've seen a few sell for so little, and when I wanted to get one, they're nowhere to be seen... :-\
Quote from: andy1702 on April 20, 2018, 09:33:25 AM
One interesting point is the case differs from later 746s in that the button blank is held in by a metal clip (706 fashion) rather than having built in plastic lugs as it did on later models.
Quote from: andy1702 on April 20, 2018, 03:35:34 PMThe question is did all early 746s have the alpha numeric surround, or was it just some of them?
That's a nice phone Andy, being a 746L it would have had the ABC dial surround from new. I recently bought an Ivory 1969 746 from a charity shop for £10 (not a 746L) it has a plain dial surround, it is all original, it has the sloping handset rest and the metal clip holding in the button blank.
When did they stop using the F and L suffix to the phone types? I picked up a topaz yellow 746 mk1 from 1972 yesterday which clearly states 746F on the base. Sure enough the dial surround is blank, like most 746s in the world. It makes me think they must have still been producing 746Ls at the time though to feel the need to fully print the type on the base. My thought is maybe some manufacturers continued to use the suffix and others didn't. This one is marked SPK, which if memory serves me, is the code for Plessey.
I think I've got a black, red and green 746L now. Strangely no ivory, which is the most common colour by far. I'd like a yellow one (the rarest colour) but I'm not holding my breath.
I don't know when they stopped exactly, but presumably once they went to all-figure dialling, the requirement for lettered dials ceased, though the model naming for the 746F continued as that was the variant for that particular version... :)
I've got a 1968 one with no letter.
I like that color combination. It looks even better in a good still pic than when I first saw one...
Quote from: ThePillenwerfer on May 23, 2018, 10:14:38 AM
I've got a 1968 one with no letter.
That's interesting because they were still issuing 746Ls in 1971. Although I'm not sure why because I'm told all figure numbering was completed around 1967-8. There's definitely a shot of a red L being delivered to a farmer in a film made for the Post Office in the early 1970s.
My 1969 doesn't have a letter either.
I assume the different manufactures made changes at different times.
@ThePillenwerfer - mine is also currently for sale on Ebay!
Do the 2 different date codes indicate it took 7 months from when it was produced to when the GPO certified it?
Quote from: HarrySmith on May 23, 2018, 04:43:22 PM
Do the 2 different date codes indicate it took 7 months from when it was produced to when the GPO certified it?
The 1969/1 does not refer to January 1969, it just means it was produced in 1969 - the number 1 is just a model number reference.
This is actually the first GPO phone I have ever seen that has been stamped with a full date!
Interesting.
these phones are not normally stamped with a full date, so to find one is quite unusual.