Create Custom Dial Card?

[Sigmaz]

Thanks Zigmaz, I made some dial cards. one is for a WE 302 I'm giving to a friend with his phone number.One of the few of us that still has a land line. Like myself, he lives in the boonies & doesn't get cell service at home.

That's great!
I'm glad it worked out for you, It actually looks quite good in your phone.

Sorry about the post-processing legwork.. I just haven't gotten around to working on it.

[oldguy]

Hi guys & gals. Does anybody know how to make the software to make dial cards? The online sites seem to stop working after a while. Stand alone software might be a better idea. I would be willing to buy it if the price wasn't outrageous.

[SUnset2]

When I make a reproduction number card, I use Photoshop Elements.  I use a scan of a card of the style that I want, and use the text tool to make the new EXchange name.  Copperplate is the font used for the first two letters, I forget which font matches the small text.  I composite it together and print it on card stock with the appropriate amount of yellowing.  I usually leave the numbers blank, and stamp those in with the appropriate type of stamper.  It doesn't look right printing the number with the cards, as they were always stamped later.

[nolan613]

Interesting avatar, growing up in Columbia, SC our Exchange was SUnset 7 back in the late 50's.

[SUnset2]

This SUnset is from the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. It became my childhood number when we moved there in 1958. I had it ported to a cellular number when my parents had to move out because of poor health. So I still have the same number I had when I was 1 year old. We got it just a few months after they changed from 6 digit to 7 digit numbers.

[nolan613]

Wonderful memories... Happy for you. Wishing you and yours a safe New Years.

[DuinoSoar]

Hi, folks.

Sorry for resurrecting a seven-year-old topic here, but I am wondering if anyone knows of a currently available website or downloadable app (free of course; I'm cheap  ) for creating custom dial cards?  All of the links previously referenced in this topic are dead (understandable, since the most recent previous post was over three years ago).

Alternatively, does anyone know how to create dial cards using MS Word or LibreOffice Write templates (like those Avery label templates for MS Word, which also, apparently, work in LibreOffice.).

For using MS Word or LibreOffice Write templates, what fonts and font sizes work well for things like a "permanent-looking" font for the Area Code and the exchange name and first digit, and either a "stamp" or "typewriter" font for the last four or five digits, etc.?

I would like to create round dial cards of different formats for the following phones:

• Northern Electric N293 wood wall phone (with a number 4H dial; something like the first image below)
• Automatic Electric Type 40 Monophone (with, I think, a number 24 dial? See second image below)
• Northern Electric Model 500 (with the one-piece, clear plastic finger wheel; see third image)

I also need to create rectangular cards for:

• A Northern Electric Contempra Phone
• An ATC/Deco-Tel Chestphone.

I would appreciate any suggestion or recommendation as to how to make these dial cards on my printer.

(BTW, I do have printer card stock available, so that is what I will be using for these cards.)

Thanks and regards to all,
   Ed ("The DuinoSoar")

 

[TelePlay]

There are many ways to do this from searching eBay for "telephone number card" to buying them from Old Telephone Works to making your own.

This link is an archive of many card types you can use as starting templates to make your own using whatever software you have, are comfortable using.

http://www.telephonearchive.com/numbercards/index.html

Then there is how you print them. I've always had difficulty laserjet printing on card stock in that my printer did a lousy job thermo setting the powder ink on card stock (printed images would smear on hard touch).

I like to import an image into PhotoShop and use two different fonts to add numbers. One thing nice about a photo editing software package is that the numbers can individually be slightly moved up or down to make the phone number look like it was stamped on a card with one of those WE number stamps used by techs in the field when installing a new number (the area code was pre-printed on the blank number card).

Getting the color to match is a bit of a challenge. White paper is too white and yellow card stock is too yellow. Others have used different paper staining techniques (starting with white card stock) to get the "old" look. I prefer a hot iron in that it both darkens the paper and sets the laserjet toner at the same time.

As to fonts, they have been stated in posts on the forum. Search our hope someone has the info at hand.

WE cards can be cut out with a round punch but AE have to be hand cut.

Seems like a simple task but it's not in that there are so many options on how to achieve your number card goals. Others can add how they do theirs.

[DuinoSoar]

Thank you, @TelePlay.

One of the key words in my previous post was "free."  (Did I mention that I am a cheapskate? )  I don't mind making the effort to create the cards myself, from scratch (or from "near‑scratch").

I have an inkjet printer and have had good results printing on 8.5 x 11 printer card stock for other print projects, so the toner issues you were experiencing with your LaserJet printer would not be a problem when printing on card stock.

I could use LibreOffice Write to import a dial card graphic and try to print text over that, and experiment with different graphic and font sizes etc.  This is one of the reasons that I was hoping that someone may have created dial-card template files to use with either MS Word or Libre Office Write (which can import MS Word files and templates, IIRC).

Another possible alternative: If I have a correct-sized-and-cut, round blank dial card (which I do for the AE 40, with the proper notches around the circumference), is there some way I can print directly onto that with an inkjet printer?

Of course, another way to do it would be to just print the graphic patterns and text in any "close-to-correct" size, center an actual WE or AE dial-card over the area, trace the outline of the dial card with a pencil, and then cut out the dial card.  That should work okay, I think.

I tried using the forum "search" box to look for "dial card fonts" and "fonts for dial cards" but did not have much luck getting relevant hits.  Maybe I am using the wrong search terms?  The search engine seems to use "or" logic on the search words instead of "and" logic. (Is there some way I can select that?)  BTW, can you tell me the specific font names you have used for your dial cards?

You mentioned about the white vs. off-white.  I believe that the later dial cards for model 500 sets (like the third image in my previous post in this topic) were white when new, correct?  Were new dial cards for older vintage phones off-white, or were they originally white and the colour changed over time to become more off-white?  I think I might have some off-white card stock, or might be able get some from "Wally-World".

BTW: For my ATC/Deco-Tel chest-phone, I need to print a blank cardboard dial insert that is the same "yellowy-beigey" colour (or is it beigey-yellowy? ) as the phone inside the wooden chest, because the phone came with the plastic center dial insert severely scratched up.  I have a WE celluloid dial-card cover to put over it.  (The actual phone number dial card for these phones is rectangular, like for 2500 sets and Contempra phones, and goes into a silver-coloured frame in the upper left corner of the phone.)

Thanks and very best regards,
  Ed ("The DuinoSoar")

[HarrySmith]

Search with just "FONT" brings up a lot. Here is one topic that seems to cover a lot.

https://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=27385.msg264230#msg264230

[DuinoSoar]

Thank you for your help, Harry.  (And John too.)

[nil4k]

Today I created the following custom dial card for my model 500 phones in postscript and shared it here in pdf format in case anyone else finds it useful:

https://postscriptcode.com/555card.pdf

and the source in case you want to edit the phone number:
https://postscriptcode.com/555card.ps

Photos of a previous version

[poplar1]

You mentioned about the white vs. off-white.  I believe that the later dial cards for model 500 sets (like the third image in my previous post in this topic) were white when new, correct? 

Bell System Western Electric telephone sets used gray card stock from about 1955-1975.

[jsowers]

NIL4K your repro card looks great to me on that modular phone.

The earlier cards were indeed light gray originally and most all of them faded to a buff color with exposure to light. I got a number stamper and a black pouch of number cards from the Kansas City area about 20 years ago and those cards were light gray and from the 1950s and early 1960s. Picture below for reference.

[nil4k]

NIL4K your repro card looks great to me on that modular phone.

The earlier cards were indeed light gray originally and most all of them faded to a buff color with exposure to light.

Thanks!  Judging by the content of your cards, they come from before the 1962 advertisement pictured in my photo.

I am positive that (as much as my childhood memory of getting my own phone line as a kid in 1982 allows) southwestern bell gave us pure white cards with the modular set in my photo, but I can definitely make a gray KL5- version of the pdf eyeballing a match to your pre-1962 cards if anyone would want that.

version 2 images: