Soft Plastic 1958 LT Beige 500

[RotarDad]

Very nice restoration on a nice phone!  I can't remember seeing a color 500 refurbishment that was all soft plastic.  That color is my least favorite, but it looks great on that phone.

[poplar1]

Who is Jim? Did you mean Jonathan (me)? The dates I provided were from phones with housing and handset date stamps and weren't meant to convey the production range in colors of soft plastic 500s. Yes, they do span the gamut, but some of the phones I listed are hard plastic and still have date stamps. They were still date stamping phones until late in 1959.

It was the date stamp dates and not the type of plastic I was recording. Soft plastic ceased production in June, 1959 except for brown and black. I'm assuming the brown keysets were soft plastic, but have never personally seen one to know for sure. They used up the remaining soft pieces throughout the rest of 1959 and by 1960 I think they were totally hard plastic (ABS).

Sorry if I misled anyone. Yes, it would be interesting in a different topic to know who has the earliest and latest of which color. And what's stamped on the housing isn't always what's on the base, so how you record the date is debatable.

Sorry, Jonathan. No offense was intended. I think I was confused by the title "Date stamping on Soft plastic 500s."

[poplar1]

I hope i'm not hijacking this thread, but i have the same question about metal body 102 W.E. telephones.

I recently purchased a 102 round base with 534 ringer box from a reputable seller on Ebay.

It has the typical " B1" stamp on the neck; the W.E. logo on the underside of the handset, and along the bottom edge it has tamped " W.E. made in USA patent No. .... " with a date of Sept.16,1925.

I've seen this same stamp on other W.E. 102's, as well on the side of the protruded dial plate  - usually with multiple dates, and others with no patent stamp at all.

My question is, does having this patent stamp authenticate the telephone? Having the patent stamped on a certain part of the telephone make it authentic or is it all irrelevant?

If you mean Sept. 16, 1924, this is actually G.K. Thompson's patent for the earlier "A1" handset mounting, which is the predecessor of the B mounting 102. 

Unfortunately, the presence of patent dates doesn't always indicate that a phone is authentic; the most common fake is a Western Electric 51AL "candlestick" phone which has the original WE patent dates.

[AE40FAN]

I changed the subject from date stamps to focus more on why the actual question came up.  The light beige 500 I purchased on eBay revealed a green date stamping at the bottom front housing in photos.  I was positive it was light beige but, the 10/55 stamping on the base plate through me off.  I then guessed it must be an early refurb but, how early exactly?  Would it still be soft plastic as date stampings were done until the end of 59' I believe.  Phone arrived and all my questions were answered.  Except for the dated handset which has a green stamp of 2-58 and right underneath that a hard stamp of 57.   I've never seen or heard of a hard stamping on soft plastic. 

[WEBellSystemChristian]

Hard stamping on Soft plastic, something's gotta give