AE-50 dates

[rx808]

Gents (and Ladies, of course)-

I've got my AE-50 up and working now (thanks to the board), and am really, really happy with it.  I thought my WE500 was nice, but--->wow.  This AE sounds great (voice+ring), and looks even better.

Which brings us to--does anyone have any idea of how to date AE's?  I know that 1937 to 1956 is the range, but can it be narrowed down?

BobH

[DavePEI]

Which brings us to--does anyone have any idea of how to date AE's?

Just ask Ms. AE. She might say yes!

Seriously, you might PM AE_Collector - Terry might be able to give you some hints, but as AE didn't put dates on their components as WE did, it isn't easy. There are also some other very serious AE collectors who are members - they may be able to give you some guidance.

Dave

[JorgeAmely]

AE phones usually have patent numbers stamped somewhere on the bottom of the phone. Try looking up the issue dates for these patents to have a rough idea when the phone was released to manufacture.

Then you can use the popular Google Patents search engine to look them up:

http://www.google.com/patents

[AE_Collector]

Dating an AE 50 is pretty hard to do. Made from about 1939 or 1940 through the very late 50's. I am building a big spread sheet of all the codes found on AE's along with the other unique features of each particular phone in an effort to "decode" the codes. Here's the discussion, contributions always welcome:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=5514.msg67058#msg67058

There should be some relatively consistant things to help narrow down the production time frame a bit more such as when they changed from internal cloth insulated wiring to plastic insulated wiring. One day I will get back to work on that project!

Terry