Estimates on surviving phone "populations"?

[mr_a500]

I'm trying to get an idea on the numbers of old rotary phones that still exist out there. Does anybody have production numbers? I know that many millions were produced, different models, different companies, but does anybody have accurate (or semi-accurate) data?

Were there mass junking campaigns when switching to touch tone - or when Bell was broken up? Are there millions still out there in basements and storage rooms - or are there just thousands?

I'm sure there was a steady junking of old phones, but that has probably slowed down recently - now that people realize they can sell old junk on eBay rather than throwing it in the trash. So, the "population" has probably started to stabilize... but what do you think that population is?

[bingster]

I don't know any production figures, but I do know there were never any campaigns to upgrade to newer phone types.  The only reasons they'd upgrade your phone is if A) you asked for a newer model, or B) your old one stopped functioning.  For that reason, many, many thousands of old (and sometimes VERY old) telephones remained in active service decades after they had been superseded by newer models.

The breakup is another thing altogether, though.  Bell said if you wanted to keep your phone, you had to pay for it.  And if you didn't want to pay for your old phone, you were to cut the mounting cord at the connection block and turn the phone in to a Bell Phone Center.  Massive numbers of telephones were taken out of service because of that

[Greg G.]

I can only relay second-hand information from individuals on what they witnessed, e.g. in the 70s I bought one of those cheesy plastic candlestick repros, and my step-dad said when he was young (30s or 40s), he remembered seeing truckloads of real candlesticks being taken to the dump when desk models appeared.  But I'm pretty sure that wasn't a result of any organized "campaign" to upgrade. 

Also, somewhere I remember seeing a picture with a story about one phone collector who excavated a hoard of candlesticks that had been dumped down and abandoned well by an independent phone company.  Again, it wasn't any part of a campaign to upgrade.

[Phonesrfun]

The answer is that nobody knows.  There were many other phone manufacurers besides Western Electric, and many other operating companies besides the Bell SYstem.  The date range and the desires of phone collectors range all the way from 1875 to the break-up of the Bell System and beyond.  All that goes into the "pool" of available phones to collect.

There are stories out there of candlesticks and wood wall phones literally being hauled off to the landfills in dump truck loads.

Every once in a while a storage shed that used to belong to an independant phone company will be found with hundreds of phones that nobody knew about (This doesn't happen very much these days)

Some efforts have been made to track production volumes, and some of that has been published.  One place I saw some production figures on early Western Electric models was in Larry Wolff's "Desk Sets of the Bell System"  [I may have the title somewhat wrong because I don't have the book in front of me]

Production numbers can only give a relative feel for how many may remain, however, due to scrapping and recycling activities of the various manufacturers and operating companies.

I am sure that the total population of total pre-break-up phones out there is still in the millions.  Certainly more that even hundreds of thousands.  And yes, there are still some in attics, barns, basements, garages, and even some still in service.

[mr_a500]

But what did Bell do with all the phones they got back after the breakup? I doubt they'd want to fill up warehouses with old phones. Did they rip them up and sell the scrap metal? Did they sell them to South and Central American countries?

If most Bell customers up to the 70's were only allowed to rent their phones, not own them, then wouldn't most of the remaining phones be from the group that decided to keep their phone after the breakup? I know there were other companies, but just for Bell and Western Electric, wouldn't this be true?

[rdelius]

When I was with Chicago old Telephone co, we bought a very large quanity of 302 sets from a contact at AT&T. These were leased returns and were seperated from the newer sets that were still being refurbished in Mexico. This might have been around the year 2000 of so.
Robby

[Phonesrfun]

But what did Bell do with all the phones they got back after the breakup? I doubt they'd want to fill up warehouses with old phones. Did they rip them up and sell the scrap metal? Did they sell them to South and Central American countries?

Most of the phones that were in service at the time of the break-up just stayed there.  When the break-up happened, the newer "baby Bells" assumed the operations of the Bell System, and everything from the standpoint of the phone on the kitchen counter or kitchen wall stayed the same.  There were no wholesale activities to turn in the Bell System phones.  Over several years, people eventually bought their phones outright from the phone company or a telephone company operated store.  Others moved, and those phones may have been turned in, but usually after the break-up the phone companies did not follow up on collecting all the junker phones.

I suspect that those that were returned to the phone companies did make it to scrap yards, but remember there were a bezillion (or so) model 500's out there.

[deedubya3800]

According to what I've read, a company doing business as QLT is now in charge of all the lease operations. There are several customers, mostly older people, who are still leasing phones they've had for decades. QLT is even still accepting new accounts, and they offer things like prescription discounts and vision plans with their agreements. Not only that, but the 500 and the 554 are still available options to lease. Their phones are not for sale, however, but I would suppose they still repair them.

[McHeath]

Someplace I've read that production of the model 500 by Western Electric was in the 160 million range.  (I might be off on that)  If we use that number as a start point and factor in decades of 500s being thrown away, destroyed in accidents, returned and discarded etc, it still probably leaves a population of tens of millions at the least.  Again that's a guess on my part, but given the ease with which you can still find a 500, especially late model beige modular ones, there must be a lot out there.

Someplace else I heard that the Trimline production was around 75 million, but that may be off as well.  (this was the classic Trimline up to the off shoring of production in the mid 80s)  They turn up pretty easily as well, more often than even 500s in my area, so there must be a lot of them.  Okay I found where I read that, it's here:

http://www.porticus.org/bell/telephones-trimline-article.html

[mr_a500]

Someplace I've read that production of the model 500 by Western Electric was in the 160 million range.  (I might be off on that)  If we use that number as a start point and factor in decades of 500s being thrown away, destroyed in accidents, returned and discarded etc, it still probably leaves a population of tens of millions at the least.  Again that's a guess on my part, but given the ease with which you can still find a 500, especially late model beige modular ones, there must be a lot out there.

Someplace else I heard that the Trimline production was around 75 million, but that may be off as well.  (this was the classic Trimline up to the off shoring of production in the mid 80s)  They turn up pretty easily as well, more often than even 500s in my area, so there must be a lot of them.  Okay I found where I read that, it's here:

http://www.porticus.org/bell/telephones-trimline-article.html

Interesting. I knew there were many millions made, but the idea of tens of millions still left boggles the mind. What I'm mostly interested in is how many phones from the early 1950's survive. (because I now have 7 of them ) Maybe I should change the question a bit... how often do early 50's WE 500 and Stromberg 1443 models turn up? Any estimates on the numbers of those that still survive? (rough estimate or baseless guess is fine  )

[McHeath]

I seem to also recall reading that 35 million model 302s were made.

As for 50's production numbers I only have read that the model 500 only had about 200,000 units made by January of 1952.  (that was in some Bell System publication)  I would assume that the bulk of 500 production then followed in the later 50's up to the early 70's when other models began to supplant it. 

If you've got a model 500 from before 1952 you've got what I think is a rare bird, as not many had been made and we can assume their survival rate is low, especially ones that were not refurbed heavily.  Equally rare for the model 500 would be final years of production units, basically anything from the early 2000s.  (Cortelco, aka Kellogg, ceased model 500 production in Jan of 2006)  By then there was no market for the units, I've heard, and it may be only a rumor, that only a few thousand were made in the final years. 

I don't have any numbers for Stromberg phones.

Early Trimlines are rare also, I've read in a Bell System magazine that in the first year, 1965-66, only 100,000 were made.  Early model 1500's are also few in number, the same magazine said that in the first 2 years of production, 1963-65, only 150,000 had been made.  A black painted bottom 1500 with all matching dates and no refurbishment changes would be a nice find. 

[paul-f]

The numbers I've used are:

   302 - 25 million (Richard Mountjoy's book)
   500 - 161 million (Henry Dreyfuss, Industrial Designer: The Man in the Brown Suit)

The Dreyfuss book further suggests 86,000 500s were made in 1950 and production peaked in 1965 at about 7.2 million desk sets.

The Bell System also periodically published statistics on the number of phones in service -- including worldwide numbers and a breakdown on US numbers by Bell System and independents.

An interesting group activity for those of us who are mathematically inclined is to collect as many of these from as many sources as possible and build a model (spreadsheet) that fills in the gaps.

[phoneguy06]

According to what I've read, a company doing business as QLT is now in charge of all the lease operations. There are several customers, mostly older people, who are still leasing phones they've had for decades. QLT is even still accepting new accounts, and they offer things like prescription discounts and vision plans with their agreements. Not only that, but the 500 and the 554 are still available options to lease. Their phones are not for sale, however, but I would suppose they still repair them.

The website for QLT leasing services is www.qltcls.com. I've had a look around, they have a newsletter, which at one point featured an article about Trimlines, complete with a picture of a rotary set. I really get a kick out of the fact that one can still rent a 500/554/rotary Trimline for about $4.95 a month!

[phoneguy06]

I've been a volunteer at our local telephone museum for a little over a year now, off and on when I have time, and we started talking one day about what our phone company did with retired sets. One of the guys mentioned that at the main exchange downtown, they had a room full of out of service AE 40s, which they were instructed to (GASP) smash to pieces with hammers. There were also piles of candlestick desk stands that were simply hauled away and dumped into our river valley. Sad, and definitely before telephone collecting became widespread.

[Jim Stettler]

But what did Bell do with all the phones they got back after the breakup? I doubt they'd want to fill up warehouses with old phones. Did they rip them up and sell the scrap metal? Did they sell them to South and Central American countries?

If most Bell customers up to the 70's were only allowed to rent their phones, not own them, then wouldn't most of the remaining phones be from the group that decided to keep their phone after the breakup? I know there were other companies, but just for Bell and Western Electric, wouldn't this be true?

Bell sold most of the phones to the consumers @ break-up. Anyone that didn't want to buy was still able to lease there phone.

A couple of years ago I bought a few factory refurbished trimline sets from the early 1990's. The were boxed up as leased sets. These are "REAL"  We telephones.
Jim S.