a couple of recent finds

[carl]

I thought these may be of interest,in that they are nice looking,and the first actually has a volume control..and it works! The second is
pure white,with a helper outer dial for those who are getting old and can't read the numbers...like me.
Carl

[bingster]

Those volume control handsets are marvels.  They packed an amazing amount of electronics in that tiny cavity between the receiver and transmitter.  The dial overlay is interesting, too.  You see those all the time, but this particular one appears to be Bell System issue.  Given the fact that Ma Bell was so against attachments, it's funny that they would put out one, themselves.  It's cool that they put the traditionally arranged letters inside the fingerwheel holes, too.

[Phonesrfun]

Interesting 2nd picture.  It appears to be an older phone that had been retrofitted to modular at one point in time.  I say that because of the older style (mid 50's) open face dial center.

-Bill

[McHeath]

Yes that overlay is interesting with the Bell System symbol on it.   I have a G6 volume control handset on a 500 and it's pretty nifty, though it certainly adds a lot of weight.  My 2003 Cortelco 500 also has a volume control handset but it's a different kind of beast entirely, tiny little modern circuitry and very little weight added. 

What year are these two phones?

[carl]

The cream colored unit says 5-79 and then there's a sticker that says Nov 18,1983.
The white one says 7-63,then there's a sticker stamped 500dm with date of 8-79,and then still another sticker that's stamped AT&T
with an 800 phone number and another date,1-16-84,so these vets probably stood around the shop for a while,and Bill,you're
probably right about the retrofitting,since even though the white one has a plastic dialer,it makes exactly the same sound as the
older units with the steel dialers,having that heavier,deeper 50s tone.Carl

[bingster]

The cream colored unit says 5-79 and then there's a sticker that says Nov 18,1983.
The white one says 7-63,then there's a sticker stamped 500dm with date of 8-79,and then still another sticker that's stamped AT&T
with an 800 phone number and another date,1-16-84,so these vets probably stood around the shop for a while

Here's what the stickers mean.  The 1983 and 1984 stickers are sales stickers.  After the Bell System was destroyed by the government, Bell System subscribers had the option of buying their old telephones.  To do that, you took your phone to the nearest phone center, paid your money, and they filled out a little sticker and put it on the bottom of the phone.  Often, they also put the AT&T service sticker on the bottom, so that you could call the number and have your phone repaired if it ever needed it.  So those stickers indicate they were in service in somebody's house until 1983 and 1984.  The 1963 phone was rerfurbed in 1979 and put back into service.

[jsowers]

Sometimes you find old phones without those stickers and you have to wonder if they were still being leased from the phone company when they were taken out.

That open center fingerwheel is unusual on a modular phone. Most of them were refurbished with newer dials with solid fingerwheels, from what I've seen. And sometimes a solid fingerwheel on an older dial. The white plastics on that 7-63 phone are in great shape too.

Carl, you should keep that volume control handset. It may come in handy. If you can't see the regular dial markings, then you may enjoy the "Rude Awakening" thread.    I put on my glasses to dial the phone more and more these days.

[carl]

Thanks guys for the really interesting info and history.I think I Will keep the adjustable volume phone just in case. My wife claims I
have selective hearing anyway! Carl

[bingster]

Sometimes you find old phones without those stickers and you have to wonder if they were still being leased from the phone company when they were taken out.

I've always wondered about that, too.  My guess is that if somebody didn't live near a phone store (and I suspect many people, maybe most people, didn't), then they'd have to do some sort of payment by mail to the phone company to purchase their phone.  In such a case, their phone wouldn't get all the stickers.

[jsowers]

I've also seen those stickers on the plastics of the phone and on the underside of a 554. I think a lot of them were mailed to the owners after payment was received and sometimes didn't make it to the phone. I also doubt a lot of people could take their phone loose if it were hard-wired, as many phones still were in the 1980s since modular only started about ten years before phones were sold. So they couldn't be brought in easily.

The 554 wall phones would be especially hard to remove and bring in. And panel phones were pretty much flush mounted. I'm sure it had to have been a gigantic undertaking, and kind of sad since it was one of the final things they did before the breakup.

I've seen stickers saying that something "expired on 12-31-83" stuck to the bottom of the phone and had to wonder, because the Bell System expired on that day and broke up into a lot of separate companies.

[benhutcherson]

Interestingly enough, I have a hard wired 554 with one of those stickers on it.

This particular 554 was given to me  by a friend, who said that his grandparents had it out in their garage. From the dates, it had been there since '63, and, although dirty, it obviously didn't get much use.

I've written here before, too, about stolen phones-telephones that vanished when the occupant of a house or apartment moved out. A former Bell man who was pretty high up here locally told me that this was a big problem, and probably where a lot of the older phones we collect come from.

[McHeath]

Very few of my old phones have those stickers on them, so I don't know what's up with that.  They don't appear to have ever had the sold date sticker, so I'm guessing they simply walked off the job at some point.

And all the stickers I have are dated between 83' and 84', must have been a big fire sale of phones at that point. 

[bingster]

They'll all be 1983 or 1984.  That's when the word went out that people had to either turn in their phones or buy them.

[Dan]

I wish I was collecting back in '83 or '84. Imagine if we all could go back in a time machine ....... I'd have every soft plastic 500 and 554 made.

[McHeath]

Trouble was who knew that recent make, for that time, plastic rotary phones would be hot items 25 years later?  I bought my ivory 500 new in 86' and looked at all the boxes with all the colors and had no idea that they would be the last of the breed.