Unusual WE green dial plate

[tom128]

Curious to know if anybody has ever seen a WE #2 dial plate made of a mint green porcelain. Attached is a photo of the mint green dial plant on the left and a regular white dial plate on the right. Its not marked on the back, its not over coated with a tint, it is green porcelain. Otherwise it is the same as a standard 132 B dial plate. And it doesn't glow in the dark. I don't know if it is a prototype, an experiment, or what it really is. I could use some help here.

Tom

[HarrySmith]

Very strange. It appears to be exactly the same as the regular plate. That is a wierd color! Have you tried a black light?

[tom128]

I don't have a black light. What would happen if I used a black light? I've held it up to a regular incandescent light bulb and when I shut off the light nothing happened. I don't know what kind of phone it would have been used on, candlestick, B mount, switchboard, coin collector, etc. And your right, it is identical to the normal white 132B in every respect except for the color.

Tom

[Doug Rose]

this looks like the plate has yellowed to me...Doug

[tom128]

It's not yellowed. I've had some plates that have slightly discolored. With this the porcelain is green all the way through including the back. After all these years I have never seen anything like it. It's an oddity, I'm assuming it is some kind of experimental thing. I got it with a regular 132B that I have pictured with the green one. I also got it with a 132B for a #2 un-notched but it has the Z operator. They were all loose, no dials and the seller had no other phone related items at all. I didn't confirm it with seller but it looked like it was one of those we sell it for you type of operation. I wish I knew what phone to put it on.

Tom

[HarrySmith]

If it glows under black like it has been irradiated.

[tom128]

If it was in fact irradiated, what would be the purpose? And being solid green throughout, both front and back, why would the back be irradiated? What would be the application it was used in? When I bought it I thought it was some homemade sprayed overcoat to make it glow in the dark. I was going strip it off and hope that I would have a pure white dial plate. Then I realized it is green throughout. The picture doesn't do it justice, it is quite a vivid mint green.

Tom

[TelePlay]

     Regular Member Post

If it was in fact irradiated, what would be the purpose? And being solid green throughout, both front and back, why would the back be irradiated? What would be the application it was used in? When I bought it I thought it was some homemade sprayed overcoat to make it glow in the dark. I was going strip it off and hope that I would have a pure white dial plate. Then I realized it is green throughout. The picture doesn't do it justice, it is quite a vivid mint green.

First, it may just have been colored that way for some reason or purpose we will have little chance of knowing and does nothing except look green.

As for irradiating it, that's a two part thing.

If a fluorescent  material were placed in the porcelain, then it would glow or seem brighter when exposed to a black light (UV part of the spectrum). The higher energy UV light would be absorbed, would "activate" the fluorescent material which would immediately return to it's normal state giving off visible lower energy light that can be seen, it would fluoresce as long as the black light was turned on. Hand stamps at night clubs is a good example of that, or black light posters from the 60s. Teeth fluoresce strangely under black light. Dissolve a Vitamin B capsule in water and expose it to a black light to get a brilliant yellow/green light effect.

If the added material were phosphorescent, activating the material with normal light would make the ring "glow" on it's own when the light were turned off. It would glow in the dark. Phosphorescent material absorb and store light releasing it slowly once the light is turned off. Wrist watch hands in the 40s and 50s were coated with a phosphorescent material so the time could be seen in the dark. Some TV remotes within the past 10 to 20 years also do this to make it easier to find the buttons in the dark (the material is mixed into the plastic button). This type of glowing slowly fades over short time, tens of minutes.

If the number ring was irradiate using a nuclear source (something that could change the color), I'd check it with a Geiger counter and if still radioactive, dispose it at a radioactive trash dump site . . .   

I still think it's just green porcelain made for reasons unknown.

[tom128]

I appreciate all the insight as far as the irradiation, I did not know that. I guess we will never really know why it was made that way. I thought experiment then I thought prototype for visibility. So I don't know what phone I'm ever going to put it in but nonetheless its unique.
I attached a close up photo of the dial.

[Jim Stettler]

     Regular Member Post

First, it may just have been colored that way for some reason or purpose we will have little chance of knowing and does nothing except look green.

I still think it's just green porcelain made for reasons unknown.

I like to think it was originally glow in the dark. If it wasn't, then it seems cooler to me.
If it is just green, then it may of been a sample for a color set matching dial ring.
Just some thoughts,
Jim

[HarrySmith]

I was trying to think of a phone that might match that color but I am coming up empty. I think it would look cool on a pure white phone. Maybe an Ivory 302?

[tom128]

I thought of the idea of possibly glow in the dark. What things I remember being glow in the dark, when they lose their ability to glow they tend to get that cream color. So I dismissed that. I like Jim's idea of the dial being made for a colored set but as Harry stated, what color. Its not going to fit a 302, a D or a 4H or 5H dial equipped phone. So it brings me back to a dial stick, an A1 or a B. I was thinking maybe an early E4, I have seen those with both 2HBs and #4s. I held the dial up to my statuary bronze B1 and that was really bad. I like the idea of an ivory but I have a pair of ivorys but they are both Ds and again, no go with the 4J dial. I'm thinking of just shadow boxing it and hanging it on the wall.

Tom

[Jim Stettler]

I was trying to think of a phone that might match that color but I am coming up empty. I think it would look cool on a pure white phone. Maybe an Ivory 302?

I meant as a complimenting color. Light green w/ green, light pink on rose ect
Jim

[TelePlay]

     Regular Member Post

I thought of the idea of possibly glow in the dark.

There are really 3 categories here, fluorescence ("Fluorescent paints offer a wide range of pigments and chroma which also 'glow' when exposed to the long-wave "ultraviolet" frequencies") which is glow in UV or black light and stops glowing when the light is turned off, phosphorescence ("Phosphorescent paint is commonly called "glow-in-the-dark" paint. It is made from phosphors such as silver-activated zinc sulfide or doped strontium aluminate, and typically glows a pale green to greenish-blue color. The mechanism for producing light is similar to that of fluorescent paint, but the emission of visible light persists long after it has been exposed to light. Phosphorescent paints have a sustained glow which lasts for up to 12 hours after exposure to light, fading over time") which stores visible light and glows for some period on its own after the light is turned off and radio-luminescence ("Radioluminescent paint is a self-luminous paint that consists of a small amount of a radioactive isotope (radionuclide) mixed with a radioluminescent phosphor chemical. The radioisotope continually decays, emitting radiation particles which strike molecules of the phosphor, exciting them to emit visible light. The isotopes selected are typically strong emitters of beta radiation, preferred since this radiation will not penetrate an enclosure. Radioluminescent paints will glow without exposure to light until the radioactive isotope has decayed (or the phosphor degrades), which may be many years") which has a radio active element that glows all by itself, without being energized, for decades.

Radio-luminescent material were first made from Radium after the turn of the century (early 1900s) and currently made using Tritium. Tritium has a radio active half life of 12 years. Radium has a half life of 1,600 years (half life is the time it take for one half of the radioactive element to decay so one half of the original Tritium would have decayed (become inactive) in 12 years, half of the remaining half gone in another 12 years, etc.).

If your ring was a true glow in the dark porcelain, it should test radioactive with a Geiger counter and it would still be glowing. I doubt that was how it was made.

I also doubt they would have put a fluorescent material in the porcelain in that the black light glow thing became popular in the 60s.

So, Occam's razor holds here, given a variety of explanations, the simplest is the correct explanation. It was simply green colored porcelain made for a reason unknown. Keep in mind, the green porcelain was baked first and the black and red letters were baked onto the green porcelain in a second or second and 3rd steps if lettered separately.

=====================

As an aside, a lot of women who worked inthe early 1900s  painting Radium phosphor onto watch hands died from Radium poisoning, this from Wikipedia:

"The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint. Painting was done by women at three different sites in the United States, and the term now applies to the women working at the facilities: the first, a United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917; the facility at Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s; and a third facility in Waterbury, Connecticut.

The women in each facility had been told the paint was harmless, and subsequently ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine point; some also painted their fingernails, face and teeth with the glowing substance. The women were instructed to point their brushes because using rags, or a water rinse, caused them to waste too much time and waste too much of the material made from powdered radium, gum arabic and water."

Once on the watch hands, the danger was minimal to the wearer.

[tom128]

John I really appreciate all the effort you made with this information. I told my wife that if she notices that I have this "glow" about me it is not a good thing. Everybody had great ideas what to do with the dial plate. Until I actually figure it out I'm putting it in a shadow box and hanging it on the wall.

Tom