Burled Walnut NE #1

[Doug Rose]

I put the #6 open face dial as Harry had commented on and cloth cords to match.

It bothered me not have the original dial on it, so I swapped it back on.

I do try to keep the original parts when rebuilding a phone, although I did put a older heavy Brass finger wheel as I did not like the Black dial on Mottled Brown.

So this is it for now!!    ..Doug

[Doug Rose]

Uniphones were sold to the independents. Bell Canada did not buy Uniphones, only the 302s. NE 302s were also sold to independents, even in the U.S.

Next question is why did NE make the #1 and #2 in Burled Walnut? The majority of the sets were Black? Every Burled Walnut set I have seen came with Black cords and a Black Finger wheel.

Wasn't it harder to make the Burled Walnut instead of black?

Why make this beautiful phone in a great mottle brown design, only to paint them black to sell them! Even the plungers are Burled Walnut.

This is such an attractive set....Doug

[NorthernElectric]

Next question is why did NE make the #1 and #2 in Burled Walnut? The majority of the sets were Black? Every Burled Walnut set I have seen came with Black cords and a Black Finger wheel.

Wasn't it harder to make the Burled Walnut instead of black?

Why make this beautiful phone in a great mottle brown design, only to paint them black to sell them! Even the plungers are Burled Walnut.

This is such an attractive set....Doug

Dunno for sure, but NE was also big in radios and the walnut bakelite was popular in that genre, so why not offer that as an option in their all bakelite telephone product line as a premium product?  I'm guessing that NE didn't paint the phone black but more likely the phone company that purchased it did that later, perhaps to disguise the crack.

[MMikeJBenN27]

Didn't these normally come with a brown painted fingerwheel?  Seems I read that somewhere, probably on this forum.

They normally came with a black metal fingerwheel, unless they had a GPO dial, in which case the fingerwheel was nickle or chrome.

Mike