Just Another Black Model 500

[Dennis Markham]

On my trip to the flea market I saw a few phones.  Some of them I have seen before.  Nothing much that interested me.  A couple wooden wall phones, a lot of modular phones, some very late Trimline type touch-tones made by various manufacturers, an ITT pink Princess that was in great shape color-wise, but not Western Electric.  I saw a 302 with a large corner crack.  It had a #6 dial.  They wanted $45.  The crack kept me from dickering.  I have enough 302's with corner cracks.  Then I came upon some "fresh meat".  I refer to sellers that I've not seen before as fresh meat.  (I go to this flea market every Tuesday and Sunday from April through October).  A seller had two 500 type phones.  One black and one beige.  Nothing too exciting but I stopped anyway as the black one looked old.  It had all the signs of being a soft plastic from the 50's.  I had no intention of buying either one.  The seller came over to me and we began talking about the phone.  He showed me that it had an original dial card.  He said the phone came from the estate of one of his paper route customers.  He delivered the newspaper to the lady that owned the phone between the years 1955 - 1960, when he was a kid in Grand Blanc, Michigan, near Flint.  He said that was her phone number and the exchange name OW stood for OWens.  

Remember that birthday phone I posted about?  The one my sister got for a buck.  It also came from Flint.  Well that sister has been an Owens (her married name) for forty-seven years.  I began to think that I should buy this phone.

We talked some more about this phone and a bunch of other stuff the guy had for sale.  We shook hands a couple of times and I was about to walk away.  But being that I'm a junkie and I haven't had a fix in a while I thought about the phone.  I knew that the plastic finger wheel had to be a replacement.  But I could see the date on the bottom, 11/56.  Handset dates were 11/56.  I could see the date on the inside front edge without removing the cover---11 14 56 2 and the plungers were Bakelite, not plastic.  The cords looked original too.  I could see it was a 7 series dial so I guessed somewhere along the way the dial must have gone bad and it was replaced.   He had told me he wanted $25, much more than I like to pay for a black Model 500.  I said will you take $20 and the deal was done.  I think the $20 was for the story more than the phone.

I will check my parts bin to see if I have a -3 color suffix dial from as close to 11-56 as I can get.  More than likely I'll put a black finger wheel and dial card retainer ring on this phone and it will be good to go...and it will.

[Tonyrotary]

Nice find Dennis. My wife is trying to convince me to go visit her family in Louisana since I am still on leave from the deployment. According to my wife her Step Dad found some cool phones from nearby flea markets. To include some old wooden wall phones. Since the odds of finding phones like that in Hawaii are rare I just might have to up and go.  

[foots]

Nice find Dennis. You northerners seem to end up with good stuff.

Tony, where  in Louisiana is your wife's family from?

[Dan/Panther]

I'm with you Foots, on the Left Coast, pickins are slim.
D/P

[Dennis Markham]

I'm beginning to believe that based upon what you folks are saying here.  I think the central part of the east coast has good hunting grounds too.  I know one of our members, John S (remember the Mahogany key sets?) seems to find a lot of nice phones in the Chicago area.  Pennsylvania seems to be a good spot as well.

[McHeath]

Yeah, there is simply nothing here in Central California.  Maybe the dramatic population growth we've had here since the Bell System era shut down has been part of that, for example my hometown had about 85,000 people in 1980 and now has 333,000.  Folks here also like the latest and greatest, stuff is tossed pretty fast, maybe that's why I never see old phones for sale at yard or estate sales. 

[Tonyrotary]

Foots,

My wife's family lives in Crowley/Lafayette area.