Found an Aqua Blue 500 U Mushroom Lamp Rotary in the trash can

[KWilder]

I found this Aqua Blue 500 U Mushroom Lamp Rotary in the trash can!!!!!  SO I was at work and one of the departments was have a gift exchange, and someone had brought in this old telephone as a gag gift. Well after the party it was thrown in the trash. By chance I had pasted by and noticed the phone in the trash picked it up and returned to my desk. I must add that I am an AVAYA PBX administrator so phones are my life. So I began to look on the internet for this phone and to my amazement it turned out to be very rare. So, please enjoy my photos of the restored Aqua Blue 500U rotary I proudly have on display at my home.

[TelePlay]

Wow, an "Aqua Blue 500 U Mushroom Lamp Rotary in the trash can!!!!! " certainly is a find. Very nice indeed. No need to tell the person who threw it away how many hundred of dollars that phone is worth to a phone collector . . .

[baldopeacock]

One man's trash is another man's a bunch of people on CRPF's  treasure.

[KWilder]

Yes I was amazed at the fact that I was so lucky to have found that Jewel.  Can you guys give me an idea of how much this is worth? I have looked and found nothing as far as value goes. I have to say I will not sell it I have a few phones that I have collected as well as old linemen test sets and AT&T desk phones from the 1A2 shoe box key sets to the Dimensions and System 75.  I have a few still in the original boxes.

[WEBellSystemChristian]

Yes I was amazed at the fact that I was so lucky to have found that Jewel.  Can you guys give me an idea of how much this is worth? I have looked and found nothing as far as value goes. I have to say I will not sell it I have a few phones that I have collected as well as old linemen test sets and AT&T desk phones from the 1A2 shoe box key sets to the Dimensions and System 75.  I have a few still in the original boxes.

Most of the Mushrooms out there are either black or pink. Those usually go for about $200-$300 if they have all of the original parts. Yours is light blue, which is much rarer than the others that are usually found. I would guess that this probably worth right around $600-$800, because it has the original mushroom cap (a lot of the caps that are on restored mushrooms are painted reproductions) and it's an original light blue one.

Either way, if you decide to sell it or keep it, you are a very lucky guy! If you decide to collect 500s, this will probably be the creme de la creme of your collection for a very long time. I have been searching for a mushroom since I started collecting, and other than one that slipped through my fingers for $28 on ebay last year (was probably actually worth about $400), I have not found one.

Welcome to the forum, and congratulations on your spectacular find!

[Kenton K]

Nice! I'm very jealous !

[Doug Rose]

KWilder....welcome to the Forum! I am also an Avaya CM 6.2 PBX administrator. We are global and link many PBXs together, now all Avaya. I also am the Video Guru with a Global Tandberg system. I keep very busy. I have been a tech for over 35 years and have been collecting telephones for the same period. Coincidence? Nah!

This is the third PBX I have had at the Largest Private Bank in he world.  An Alcatel and a NEAXC2400 preceded it.

I am surprised it took you so long to get into phones, I was a cabler when I started. This is a helluva first find .....for free to boot.

Again...Welcome to the Forum, there are few techs here...Doug

[mentalstampede]

This find gets my vote!!! Very nice!

I found this Aqua Blue 500 U Mushroom Lamp Rotary in the trash can!!!!!  SO I was at work and one of the departments was have a gift exchange, and someone had brought in this old telephone as a gag gift. Well after the party it was thrown in the trash. By chance I had pasted by and noticed the phone in the trash picked it up and returned to my desk. I must add that I am an AVAYA PBX administrator so phones are my life. So I began to look on the internet for this phone and to my amazement it turned out to be very rare. So, please enjoy my photos of the restored Aqua Blue 500U rotary I proudly have on display at my home.

[KWilder]

KWilder....welcome to the Forum! I am also an Avaya CM 6.2 PBX administrator. We are global and link many PBXs together, now all Avaya. I also am the Video Guru with a Global Tandberg system. I keep very busy. I have been a tech for over 35 years and have been collecting telephones for the same period. Coincidence? Nah!

This is the third PBX I have had at the Largest Private Bank in he world.  An Alcatel and a NEAXC2400 preceded it.

I am surprised it took you so long to get into phones, I was a cabler when I started. This is a helluva first find .....for free to boot.

Again...Welcome to the Forum, there are few techs here...Doug

Thanks for the kind welcome. I was introduced to the industry by my father whom was with New England Tel , Ma'Bell in Florida, AT&T which then he retired started his own communication business which I work at for 11 years pulling cable and doing station moves and changes. I then wanted to get out of the ceilings and in to the PBX administration so I start doing consultant work which lead me to Convergys which I work on over 20 AVAYA CM 5.2 - 6.2 systems around the world. Most are either in Florida or Cincinnati which we do a lot split media configurations.

Most recent work has been the BASH patches have you been doing these on your boxes yet? If not you need to look into this, your CM's and AES are vulnerable to attackers.

The GNU Bourne Again shell (Bash) is a shell and command language interpreter compatible with the Bourne shell (sh). Bash is the default shell for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. A flaw was found in the way Bash evaluated certain specially crafted environment variables. An attacker could use this flaw to override or bypass environment restrictions to execute shell commands. Certain services and applications allow remote unauthenticated attackers to provide environment variables, allowing them to exploit this issue.

Ok sorry to run on not really the right thread for this.

Anyways thanks everyone for the kind welcome and admiring my mushroom....that's just weird and funny....LOL

[TelePlay]

Most of the Mushrooms out there are either black or pink. Those usually go for about $200-$300 if they have all of the original parts. Yours is light blue, which is much rarer than the others that are usually found. I would guess that this probably worth right around $600-$800, because it has the original mushroom cap (a lot of the caps that are on restored mushrooms are painted reproductions) and it's an original light blue one.

As a reference point on the high end, this phone has been the subject of several discussions on the forum. This is one of them:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=5618.msg68102#msg68102

starting about 3 years ago. It has not sold over that time at the high price of $890 then, and lowered over time in more than a few re-llists to the current BIN of $746.

[LarryInMichigan]

Just who was the object of this cruel "gag" .  Here: ebay link is one which sold on ebay recently for $725, and the "gag" phone is in better condition.  I wish people would pull gags like this on me.

BTW, aqua blue 500 Us are less common and worth more than pink ones.

Larry

[twocvbloke]

Well, whoever came up with the idea of using that as a "gag gift", the joke's on them for sure...

[TelePlay]

Here is one which sold on ebay recently for $725, and the "gag" phone is in better condition.

For $725 and 12/56, shouldn't that phone have been one of soft plastic?

[KWilder]

Thanks for all the info and Yes now the GAG... phone is in better shape however I had to do some buffing on the soft plastic shell and handset. I would like to find a new old stock aqua blue handset cord and line cord to complete the restoration. So if anyone has these items or I am sure someone can lead me to where I might be able to buy them please let me know.
So any how yes the joke was on them.

Thanks everyone for all the help on this. Like I said I am totally amazed at how rare this phone is and I own it.

[baldopeacock]

I would like to find a new old stock aqua blue handset cord and line cord to complete the restoration. So if anyone has these items or I am sure someone can lead me to where I might be able to buy them please let me know.

There are some talented people here who can likely help you restore the original cord, they're very good at it.   Here are multiple discussions on cord repair:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?board=22.0