I haven't had much time to be on here lately, been too busy messing with cheap Chinese VoIP phones for customers :-). But I had to share this one.
I went to my 40th (ouch!) high school reunion in Lake Placid, NY at the end of June. My wife of 35 years was raised there by her aunt and uncle and they gave me this 554 as we were leaving to head back to GA. When we were dating in the mid 70's, this phone was in the kitchen and we had many, many conversations between this phone and wherever I was at the time.
It was actually in pretty good shape for a 53 year old phone. The base is all matching 4/62 dates, the handset is a hodgepodge of 60's and 70's with a G1 bakelite handset but soft plastic caps. Someone had rigged a new handset cord in it, no strain reliefs or spade terminals. All that has been done was a good cleaning and polishing of the base plastic, dial face and finger wheel and replacement of the handset cord with a proper one. My wife said we probably melted the original cord in the 70's :-)
I don't generally get too worked up over regular 500 series phones, but I have to admit this one is kinda special. I even have spousal permission to mount this one in the house! Definitely my find of the month.
