Western Electric Black 554 Soft Plastic

[Craig T]

This phone was supposed to be a quick one and it fought me the whole way. The original base I had was bent so long story short I had to do a lot of parts swapping.The case and the handset came from this phone shown first.


After everything I discovered the caps were hard plastic. Well I had one Ear cap, but no mouth cap.I checked my 500 model I just did to see if those caps were original and sure enough they were replacement caps too.


So I am looking to purchase one ear cap and two mouthpiece caps for the G1 handsets if anyone can help.

That is a bummer because everything else on the other phone was from 5-54. I would really appreciate a set to match the year for that handset.

This one came in with about 12 others on my best phone weekend of the summer, sometime in August. I only found anther 3-4 rotary phones during the rest of the summer. If you gave me a choice of color, black would be my first choice.


If you could run just one, which would you prefer the black 500 or the black 554?
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=2147.0

[Phonesrfun]

Well, it still looks very nice!

-Bill Geurts

[McHeath]

Yes I agree, it's a very good looking example with a nice shine. 

[Dennis Markham]

Craig, the phone looks very nice, great job!  I'm a little confused.  You said the dates were from 5-54?  Is that the date of the plastic?  We've been trying to pin down the date that the 554 was originally released and the consensus is that they released Black and Ivory in early 1955.  You're not confusing the date (5-54) with the model number 554?

There was some discussion of that here:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=1161.msg14701#msg14701

Vern has indicated that he had seen documentation saying the release of the 554 was in early 1954.  If you have a Model 554 with dates indicating it was made in 5-54, then it would be a very early set and would support what Vern has said about the early manufacturing dates.

Vern's comments are here:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=2172.msg29219#msg29219

~Dennis

[Craig T]

No, you are misreading that. I said the "other" phone is dated 5-54. Just before that I talk about how the caps on my 500 were replacements too, so I was looking for 3 caps total.

1 mouthpiece for this 554 and both caps for the 500 all from G1 handsets.

No super early 554 models here. 1957 is the dial date and some of the other stuff too. The network is now a 425B from 1960 b/c of the switch I had to make. This 554 was mostly 1957 before that.

[Dennis Markham]

Oops...not enough caffeine yet when I read that.

[Craig T]

No problem Dennis  

I am running out of gas and out of phones up here, so this will be one of the last ones for a while. I have a couple 302s and one green phone on its way.

I had a great summer finding phones so I had a lot of winter projects to catch up on.

Good timing... I think most folks have have seen just about enough of my shine anyhow  

[Dennis Markham]

I can only speak for myself, but I never get tired of seeing another phone that someone has made look "purdy" again...not to mention put back into usable condition.  So post away!  Your telephones are very nice indeed!

[Craig T]

Thanks again Dennis  

I am trying to talk myself into a couple hour drive to pick up another 302 from an antique store. It is nice, but I almost need another item to go that far.

The unfrosted side of me wants to finish my taxes, but the frosted side wants to shine up another phone!  



Question: When did color phones first come out? I have a Beige dial from 1952, if the 500 model was first made in 1949 then this has to be early... no?

[Dennis Markham]

According to Paul Fassbender's site, Light Beige didn't make an appearance until 1957.  Perhaps your dial has a different color suffix where it was on earlier made phone.

The Western Electric color code chart on Paul's site is here:

http://www.paul-f.com/we500typ.htm#Colors

~Dennis

[Craig T]

I could not find this dial listed in there... maybe you can take a look and point out the err in my foolish ways  

[Dennis Markham]

That 7A dial is an early dial.  I'm not positive but I think the "I" indicates the Indianapolis plant.  That dial bezel looks like it may be a white bezel that has discolored to the beige color.  Just a guess from the photo.

I don't think the early dials had color suffix codes, probably because when they first came out there was only black.  I'd bet it was on a black phone originally. 

[Craig T]

That would be good money on that bet. It came in on a black 554 that my grandpa gave me. I did not think it was original though as it was a more modern shell. Now I am going back to check.

I had heard of color cases with black dials, but never the other way around. They assembled some early phones with a color dial and a black case?


Even on the underside of the dial it is Light Beige. The top layer you see looks to have yellowed from UV, but grandpa was a heavy smoker at one time too.

[Dennis Markham]

No, I don't believe there were two-tones with a colored dial bezel with a black housing.

That dial has the 3 point mount which would have been common with the old 500's.  More than likely the dial was recycled in 1966 (I forgot to mention that on the last post).  I don't recall or have not known what the "L" designates but it is a refurbish stamp.  So sometime in 1966 some work was done to it.  Probably when it was added to the beige dial bezel.

[Craig T]

Now I understand why it did not make sense against what I knew... the bezel was added later on.

The 554 I was talking about had a darker beige dial in it, I just checked. It was modular too.

Good point about the third screw hole on this one, I did not check or notice it.

So this is a dial from Frank's collection by the sounds of it.