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:
Smoking hot deal. WE500s in good condition go for more than that.
You might find an AT&T date code on the bottom.
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.
Pulse dialing is STILL recognized. It won't go away anytime soon, as there are still places where rotary phones are still in use. :-)
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.
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