Recently, one of my mom's friends gave me a very dirty 1946 Western Electric 302 for my birthday. He said that he found it in a basement with a phone just like it, but had already given the other one away

. I started cleaning it today, and noticed that there were reflective flecks in the plastic. I checked inside the housing to make sure it was through and through, and it was--it seems to be an intentional metal flake plastic. From most angles, it appears that they're gold flakes, but from certain angles, they almost appear reddish.
This reminded me of Doug Rose's Mottled Brown 302, so I visited that thread, and realized that the date on Doug's phone was 5-46, and my phone is dated 6-46

. Has anyone seen anything like this? Could Western Electric have been experimenting with plastic housings for phones after the war?