Would anyone happen to know the dimension of these and similar switchboards? Also how much does the unit weigh?
555: 30" wide, by 46" high, and ~ 30" from front of keyshelf to back of cabinet. Weighs about 300 pounds fully equipped. The nice thing about moving one is the fact that the cord units are removable.
Can't say about "similar" boards. ISTR that the 550, 551, 552 and 556 are similar in size and weight.
Vic
More like 400 lbs. if fully loaded, and top-heavy. I had the misfortune of having mine falling over onto my legs years ago when I was installing casters on it years ago - I was alone, and it was a struggle getting out from under it, and you should have seen the bruises up and down my legs! No damage to the board, though!
Thanks. this house has a narrow doors. the front door is barely 32in wide. More like 31.5 actual clearance.
Info on these units?
Quote from: trainman on March 03, 2016, 09:38:21 AM
Thanks. this house has a narrow doors. the front door is barely 32in wide. More like 31.5 actual clearance.
But the desk part is easily removed on the 555's making it much thinner front to back so I would think that it would then go through most doorways sideways without a problem.
First pic looks to be a 555 with the sloped keys and cords between the desk and the back part of the cord board. The newer 555 series was an improvement clearing off the desk portion so the operator had desk space to work on other office type projects between routing calls.
Second pic would be from the older 551/552 (?) series with keys and cords on the flat desk portion rather on an angle like the 555. Looks like maybe the operators positions used in front of an automatic PBX (is that a 552?) which basically makes it for show only as it isn't capable of working in its own.
Terry
The basic 555 switchboard cabinet was wired as 1 of 3 different types of switchboards. ( they used different #'s depending on the board type)
Hotel Switchboard
Answering Service Switchboard
Central office board
I have had examples of all 3.
The heaviest was the Answering Service board, The lightest was a hotel switchboard. The only one I still have is a central office board.
JMO,
Jim S.
With the desk removed you can get them thru a narrow doorway. It is best to add wheels (if it doesn't have them) while you still have it disassembled. I highly recommend having wheels on any switchboard, It makes it a lot easier when you move them around.
it looks like the 555 is missing a lot of pieces. and the 551 type, unless it comes apart, probably wont fit through my front door. :(
Don't forget the Leich L55 clone of the 555
Quote from: trainman on March 04, 2016, 10:58:57 AM
and the 551 type, unless it comes apart, probably wont fit through my front door. :(
Oh come on, now. What kind of excuse is that? LOL.
That never stood in the way of desire:
L.M. Fuehrer, G. Whiteman,
The PBX Side of Telephone Service, Bell Telephone Magazine 29(1), p35 (Spring 1950).
Lol. The widest window in my house is only 27in wide.
Sad part is, the 555 pictures was part of an operating home system. He had phones in every room. Then there was an estate sale. Who knows what was picked over. Then the new owner is in the process of cleaning, going to do a gut rehab. So, while some stuff is there, I have no idea if enough is there. Guy said he already demolished the equipment room in the basement. And hes not sure of he saved all of it.
The attached file will show you how to operate it.
Doug
Are these 2 boards worth 400 as is? Guy wont budge on 400. I really only want the 555, but its is missing more modules and no blanks at least to fill empty slots. And back and bottom covers are missing.
Cord boards are funny items as far as pricing goes because most people dont want to deal with shipping them. And if you cant pick it up locally you probably dont want to deal with the price of shipping even if the seller will crate and ship one. But, being able to pick these up locally presumably wipes out all shipping cost and allows you to see first hand what you are buying.
That Said, I don't think they are worth $400 for the pair. If the 555 was complete and you didnt mind getting both of them in one deal I would likely say to grin and bear it and pay the $400. But with the missing panels and cord circuits that is going to be more expense to get it together unless someone has parts. Dave PEI may have had two 555's that he built one from in which case he may have cord circuits available. I will PM him to make certain that he sees this.
I had a nice complete 555 that I didn't want to sell but a guy just had to have it. When he got to $800 I said "Sold"! I knew where another one was and made a deal for it and now it inhabits my family room where my original 555 used to be parked.
Terry
I wish this guy would just come down on his price. There is more stuff in the basement, but its probably more junk. There is a pile in the basement, where I can see at least one complete cord circuit, might be 3 that I can see. But stil, not complete. Unless someone does buy them, there headed for the dumpster, as guy is rehabbing house, and doesny want them.
See if he will include in all the other phone stuff if you buy the boards. That way you can see what else there is.
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They following was a reply I started earlier:
I see cord boards offered at $1,000 to $1,200. They don't sell and can usually be eventually bought locally for $200-$350.00.
Most boards i see advertised are offered @ $1,000- $1,250 or $250-$350. If you really want a switchboard you should be able to find 1 locally and eventually buy it for $100-$200 ( within 6mo or a year). They are cool but in very low demand. The key is to check back every month or two. Eventually the space considerations outweigh the perceived value.
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The most interesting 555 I saw locally was priced @ $1,600 It was down to $350 last time I saw it. I don't know what it finally went for.
What made it interesting was that it was a 555 set up for a left-handed Blind attendant (Talk about a scare set-up). it took awhile ( 2-3 weeks of casual research) to understand what the set-up was. At the time I had a CO board, answering machine board and a hotel board and no spare cash or room.
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If you do buy the boards I can hook you up with a collector that has 555 parts and used to work on them as his job. He rebuilt my CO board a long time ago,( before I traded into it).
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JMO,
Jim S.
I would check back with the seller every month or 2. You should be able to make a reasonable deal within a year. Also craigslist is a good spot to locate boards, Ignore the high price and get a valid phone # keep checking back until the price is reasonable.
There are lots more switchboards than buyers. If you watch you should be able to find a good deal on a nice board locally within a year or so.
I hardly see any this close to me. 45 min. Vs. A days drive. I already got the spiel from the inheritor of the boards. Hes going by the estate sale tags left on them. Almost 400 for the 555 and 175 for the 551?. Theres stuff in the basement, but its probably junk, ir stuff probably used in a CO. Some WE power supply marked 130v which I bet is for payphones, some junked cards I think are for a key sytem, a junked key? System power supply. Some switches, maybe sxs, but I dont know. Stuff pictured, that he cant find. And a ring generator, and some rack mount stuff I have no idea what it is.
As Terry mentioned, I got two boards from an antique dealer in Summerside area - they had been sitting out in a barn on a clay floor and the sides had rotted out at the bottoms on both, and each were missing parts. I was able to complete rebuild one full board out of what I had, and traded some of the unneeded parts with others. Alas, I only have one complete cord circuit left spare, and I want to keep that for a spare for the board.. I paid a total of $100 for the two boards. I re-made the sides out of oak plywood using the old ones as a template, and it looks and works well...
Dave, is there any hardware or brackets used to mount the back cover or the bottom cover? I can make the wood panels.
By the way, ill get your cord reel packed tonight and hit the PO tomorrow. Overslept this am.
I never bothered to put a back panel on mine, as it is much easier to work on without one, and it is located against a wall so no worries about fingers getting into it. I did put 2" casters on the bottom to make it easy to move in and out from the wall, and used an amphenol cable from the board to connect to a 66 block on the wall, where phones connect to it. Be careful if you decide to put casters on yours, and make sure you don't try to do it alone, as I made that mistake, and it came crashing down on my legs as I was trying to right it after putting the casters on....
There is actually no bottom cover, but what I did with mine, was drill the bottom frame to take a piece of plywood to mount a KSU power supply and ring generator inside the base... Here is a photo of mine before I wired up the PS and generator, but with them mounted.
I laughed when I had a couple of know it all MT&T fellow who came over and told me I would never get it working without batteries. I turned it on - reng a few phones - it blew their minds - I guess they didn't think you could power them with a simple KSU power supply! I literally had to pull it out an show them the supply. Too used to the old installations where the power was fed from the Telco.
Quote from: trainman on March 08, 2016, 09:10:20 PM
Dave, is there any hardware or brackets used to mount the back cover or the bottom cover? I can make the wood panels.
By the way, ill get your cord reel packed tonight and hit the PO tomorrow. Overslept this am.
http://m.ebay.com/itm/252280961444
Here is the ebay listing. Note. What is in the last picture, what is hanging on the wall probably has been trashed
Guy demolished that room in the basement, and cant find that stuff.
From what I can see there, it is a good price. What you don't need, you could sell, or use to trade for other items... I see now what you mean by the bottom panel. You could easily make a replacement. The other equipment would easily make it worthwhile, so long as you have room to put it until you can find new owners.
But.....
Now the big problem will be to find more cord circuits for it - it is possible you may find more in the pile of stuff. If you can inspect it in person, you may be able ti find out. If he only has the one cord circuit shown in the board, it probably isn't worth it.
Quote from: trainman on March 08, 2016, 09:48:16 PM
http://m.ebay.com/itm/252280961444 (http://m.ebay.com/itm/252280961444)
Here is the ebay listing. Note. What is in the last picture, what is hanging on the wall probably has been trashed
Guy demolished that room in the basement, and cant find that stuff.
My front door is only 32 inches wide. The 551 is 34 inches wide. Plus I simply dont have room for two boRds. Why I really only want the 555, at 29 inches wide. But this guy wont halve the price to take one. No, he wants 400 bucks even if I leave stuff behind. No way.
Try him again when the auction has timed out... He may be ready then to sell the board by itself it no-one buys it all... Call him in 14 hours before he can get around to re-listing it.
Quote from: trainman on March 08, 2016, 10:12:34 PM
My front door is only 32 inches wide. The 551 is 34 inches wide. Plus I simply dont have room for two boRds. Why I really only want the 555, at 29 inches wide. But this guy wont halve the price to take one. No, he wants 400 bucks even if I leave stuff behind. No way.
I was already over there. I fished through and got some Test equipment, phone and antique radio
And assorted CO maintenance tools. Another reason im not paying 400 bucks. Already gave them 100 for assorted junk I got last weekend I went there.
Need any 66 block bridging clips? I can throw a few dozen in. White and blue, if color makes a difference.
Quote from: trainman on March 08, 2016, 10:23:58 PM
Need any 66 block bridging clips? I can throw a few dozen in. White and blue, if color makes a difference.
Yes, I could use a few if you can spare them!
Will do. I probably ended up with 100 of them.
I might still have several cord circuit blanks still. But I won't be able to check until it is warmer, as they are somewhere out in my barn, and it will take a while to find them. One of my boards had six cord circuits in it - the other 5, so when I rebuilt the one, I put ten in it, so don't need the blanks. I do somewhere have the other blanks here.
I may have a couple of blanks also. I had a 555 board that was stolen. I think the blanks are here somewhere, if needed I will take a look. I also have some switchboard bulbs if anyone needs some.
Thanks for the offer. As of now, I am not getting them. He still wanted 400 bucks even if I took only one board. I only wanted the 555 and whatever else we could find in the house that goes with it. I cannot get the 551 in the house without taking it apart. I have narrow front door. 31.5 max width. Nor do I want to keep any of the stuff until either I can sell or trade it.
Those SxS switches were probably worth $30-$100 apiece. And the c.o. relay strips on the left are not often seen: ring trip, miliwatt, etc....The 551 had a $175 price tag at the estate sale, and didn't sell. The guy sounds like a real jerk.
whats on the left was probably thrown away. He took down that wall, and doesn't remember if he saved them or trashed them. as to the switches, I have no idea what condition they are in.
everything in this picture was moved. I'm not even sure if all the sxs switches pictured are even accounted for.
Whats that junk on the bottom shelf?
Bottom shelf on the far right looks to be a power supply. Just to the left of it looks like 1A2 cards that belonged in the bottom shelf / card rack mounted on the 2x4's left side of the picture. Dont know what that is further to the left and finally at the far leftbof the storage shelf something from a SxS shelf without a bank or wiper, a trunk or repeater maybe?
Terry
Looks like he threw out the more valuable of what he had. Unless he previously sold the relay strips, he says he might have thrown them out when he demolished that wall.
look what I found in my library.
Quote from: trainman on March 10, 2016, 11:41:58 AM
look what I found in my library.
Volume II is in the TCI library, I believe.
It contains the sequence charts and diagrams.
Can you scan yours?
This guy is frustrating. 400 bucks even if I just take one thing. I dont want everyrhing. I dont have room for the big board, it wont fit in my front door. Walking away.
There are just some people out there who you can't deal with. He's knows you want it and is isn't willing to give an inch. I'd just walk away. But that's just me.
I hope the next guy likes dealing with this nut. I dont understand? You want the stuff out of your way, so why not deal with just the pieces I want. And adjust your asking price accordingly. Put the rest on ebay for another go round. If no takers, scrap it, with all the rest of the junk from your demolition for your gut rehab house. Guy just wants $$$$$$. No thanks.
Be patient, another board will come along eventually. I waited a while and found mine for $50.00. Pretty lucky down in South Florida, not a lot of old phone stuff around. I am so pissed it was stolen! I have not even looked for a replacement.
That's awful your board was stolen.
Found a 551b PBX near me. More complete than any of the last two I looked at.
I rather have a 555, but this one supposedly came out of a department store in my hometown.
Hmm.
Oh, this one is 28 wide and 34 deep so it will clear my front door, but I need to make sure it clears the inner door as well.
551B is definitely older and more desirable than a 555 as long as it doesn't have to live out on the driveway because it is too wide to fit through the door.
Terry
Well, it wouldn't fit it I turned it to go side first. It has to go in front first. If its truly not more than 29 inches wide, it will just squeeze in the inner door.
Im waiting for pictures to confirm its a complete pbx.
What makes a 551b more desirable? I prefer the look of the 555.
The 551 switchboard was the long-running predecessor to the 555; they were made starting in the 1920s. So naturally, the 555 is a little more modern looking. But desirability among collectors is usually higher for the less available items. 551s simply have a lot lower chance of having survived.
Well, check my ebay link on on of the past posts. If yoy can crack the seller, you might get a 552. Or maybe its a 551 with the relays removed. Who knows.
Pick up Des Plaines IL