I got a call from the service department at car dealership where I take my truck to. I know a lot of the people at the dealership as my good friend is a mechanic there. The girl in the service department knew that I worked on old phones. She asked if I would be interested in looking at an older gentleman’s phone. He is 78 years old and he loves his phone. She said it had quit on him. I told her to get it from him and I would have look at it. When I did pick it up, it was a 1955 Northern Electric black 500 and it showed it’s age. I had a quick look and it had a few different dates on it. I took it apart, checked everything. I found the tip wire had came off, I gave all the plastic parts a good cleaning and buffing. I put it back together, it looks good as new and works great. I did get a call from the gentleman before I started working on the phone and he was quite concerned about his phone. He said when he went to the Bell store, to see if you could get it fixed, the girl looked at him funny when he showed her his black rotary 500 phone. She told him they don’t use those anymore and couldn’t be fixed. She said that he would have to buy a new one, he told her he wanted a real bell phone not the stuff they make in China. Needless to say he told me he never bought one. He asked me if I had another one because he liked these phones so much that he would like to have two of them. I did set him up with another and I even made up new dial disks with his home number on them. I told him that he now had twins from Ma Bell. We have another happy senior. LOL
