Monday, February 29, 2016

Phone home

I found this model telephone in the Cleveland area last Thanksgiving.  $25?


That's a duplicate pic, from wikipedia.

Metal dial, leather feet, rubberized cords instead of cloth covered.  An early version.  So 1950s vis 1960s with the plastic dials I normally saw at people's houses.

Dad is a C&P Telephone man from back in the day.  Ma Bell.  The Telephone Company. So, at Christmas, I took it over to his house.  Originally it was direct wired to the wall, no plugs or clips.  With his help we made it more modern-friendly at the wall end.  It didn't ring.  Open it up.  Dad too one look at the spaghetti mess inside and said "Oh, it's set for a party line, just shift that wire clip for there to there."

?

Just a glance and he remembered.  He knew.  What cryptic thing do I know now than if someone asked me in 30 years I'd still know? 

Sure enough... works fine.  Luckily there is very little noise or static on this one I have.  And it dials out just fine.  A fine machine built to last.

The one pure joy of it?  I still smile when the phone rings on this guy.  That sound.  I hadn't heard it in years and never realized I missed it.  I don't mind robo-calls right now.  It's THAT good.

4 comments:

Comrade Misfit said...

Smoking hot deal. WE500s in good condition go for more than that.

You might find an AT&T date code on the bottom.

Wolfman said...

Somewhere, I'm pretty sure my dad has one of these floating around his place, hasn't been used for anything but a play phone in the toybox for decades, but I wonder if it could be made to work. I'm working on setting up a PBX at his house (he has a farm with multiple outbuildings), and it turns out the adapters that I picked up for it are compatible with pulse dialing. Tempted... so tempted. I'll have to see if I can find it.

Old NFO said...

Pulse dialing is STILL recognized. It won't go away anytime soon, as there are still places where rotary phones are still in use. :-)

Will said...

A few years ago (ten?), I had to toss some pushbutton phones of that body style, as PacBell changed the phone system, and they would no longer function. I don't recall the details, but they had sent out a note to subscribers with a prior warning about it. The phones were probably from the 80's, from a business that had relocated. I think that dial types were included in the no-function list.