685 A - in a coffin!

[don zee]

So I hit my local junk shop just as a woman heads to the checkout with a wooden wall phone priced at sixty bucks I consider various nefarious options,  but settle on congratulating her on her find.  Fast forward a week- same junk shop- same phone - now just 40 bucks- how can I resist. when  I get home and give it a close inspection I think maybe the woman who walked away probably made the right decision.  While the phone looks good, its been cobbled together out of bits of this and that,..oh well... original  components all gone or non-functional. On the plus side - It looks really cool and kinda works. I put a modular adapter on the cord and plugged it in.  and I got a dial tone.  Parts of a 685A  were built into the old case. Now if I can just get the rest of the phone working....

[southernphoneman]

So I hit my local junk shop just as a woman heads to the checkout with a wooden wall phone priced at sixty bucks I consider various nefarious options,  but settle on congratulating her on her find.  Fast forward a week- same junk shop- same phone - now just 40 bucks- how can I resist. when  I get home and give it a close inspection I think maybe the woman who walked away probably made the right decision.  While the phone looks good, its been cobbled together out of bits of this and that,..oh well... original  components all gone or non-functional. On the plus side - It looks really cool and kinda works. I put a modular adapter on the cord and plugged it in.  and I got a dial tone.  Parts of a 685A  were built into the old case. Now if I can just get the rest of the phone working....

that is a cool find, sure someone on this forum will be able to tell you how to fix it.

[southernphoneman]

So I hit my local junk shop just as a woman heads to the checkout with a wooden wall phone priced at sixty bucks I consider various nefarious options,  but settle on congratulating her on her find.  Fast forward a week- same junk shop- same phone - now just 40 bucks- how can I resist. when  I get home and give it a close inspection I think maybe the woman who walked away probably made the right decision.  While the phone looks good, its been cobbled together out of bits of this and that,..oh well... original  components all gone or non-functional. On the plus side - It looks really cool and kinda works. I put a modular adapter on the cord and plugged it in.  and I got a dial tone.  Parts of a 685A  were built into the old case. Now if I can just get the rest of the phone working....

that is a cool find, sure someone on this forum will be able to tell you how to fix it.

look, I think some of the connections of this phone are off.if you are going to have this phone as operational you must hook it up as a 500/554,just make sure the transmitter wires and the wires for the earpiece are in the right place. it appears from the photos that somethings are connected in the wrong place, and others not at all. you should go to the diagrams section of this forum and look for western electric 500 diagram and I bet it will get you going.

[George Knighton]

I am still quite new to this scene and wondered from the thread title just why the devil somebody had a telephone in a sarcophagus.

:-/

[paul-f]

I had the same reaction - and was expecting to see something like this...

[dsk]

 
Who said:
"The telephone is dead!"  

dsk

[Nick in Manitou]

Who said:
"The telephone is dead!"  
dsk

Two Thumbs up on that one!

[poplar1]

Move the black ringer wire from G to L1. Reconnect the white dial wire to R. Other than that, it looks right.

This appears to be a conversion done by the Western Electric shop. They would charge labor to install parts to make the phone equivalent to a 500, then give you back the old parts in a brown paper bag. Then you had to pay rent every month on the parts they installed.

It is wired like a 500D, as southernphoneman pointed out, except the brown soldered wire next to GN that goes to L2 rather than to the hookswitch. (This just means that when you hang up, you are switching only one side of the line, not both, but this is OK.)

I'd say use it as it is, since it was converted by W.E., rather than trying to make it original. But that is up to you. Without conversions, there would be no 5302s and no 151ALs and no 174G pay phones.

[southernphoneman]

Move the black ringer wire from G to L1. Reconnect the white dial wire to R. Other than that, it looks right.

This appears to be a conversion done by the Western Electric shop. They would charge labor to install parts to make the phone equivalent to a 500, then give you back the old parts in a brown paper bag. Then you had to pay rent every month on the parts they installed.

It is wired like a 500D, as southernphoneman pointed out, except the brown soldered wire next to GN that goes to L2 rather than to the hookswitch. (This just means that when you hang up, you are switching only one side of the line, not both, but this is OK.)

I'd say use it as it is, since it was converted by W.E., rather than trying to make it original. But that is up to you. Without conversions, there would be no 5302s and no 151ALs and no 174G pay phones.

poplar 1 that is some real good advice.