Marks On Bottom Of 302

[HarrySmith]

I have seen marks on the bottom of many 302's and have wondered what they were. Usually very faint and not readable. I just came across one and I think I finally figured it out! It looks like someone has marked it OK and put thier initials on it. What do you think?
See red circle in picture.

[Ktownphoneco]

I see that quite often as well Harry.     I've always assumed it's a technician's initials written in pencil or some such, indicating the set has been serviced and / or checked and is ready to be re-installed.     I've seen this sort of thing on the backs of dials, the inside of cases / housings, etc., etc.

Jeff

[RotarDad]

I agree with Jeff - many 500s have these pencil initial marks too, usually inside on the base, on the ringer frame and back of the dial plate.  Must be QC, and/or encouraging the employees to take pride in their work. 

[FABphones]

I have seen these marks in none US phones too. The phone I am working on now (French) has them on the wiring chassis. My thoughts on this based on my experience, is they could have been initialed by either the line assembler, or by the person inspecting the work (QC).

If added by the line assembler, when inspected it shows who did the work and who it should go back to for attention if it fails inspection.

If done by the person performing the inspection it shows the unit has passed and can be moved along to the next stage, usually fitting into its (broadly speaking) 'case'. Or for smaller component parts, assembly.

Another consideration is, in the UK at least, there was something called 'piece work'. This meant the worker got paid by the unit. If the unit failed inspection it went back to the individual concerned and they didn't get paid for that unit until it passed the inspection stage. It didn't matter how many times it went back and had to be redone, the worker only got paid once. And if it failed and was not salvageable for any reason, they didn't get paid for that unit at all. The initials helped identify who. If that 'who' had too many poor results the supervisor/management knew which person to have a word with about performance.

NB: Where no initials were possible, for example off the presses, the units were placed into a wooden crate which was marked with which worker or line number it came from. Smaller pieces were inspected then weighed in bulk to ascertain how much the worker had earnt.

This is all UK terminology, but should hopefully make some sense.