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Vintage Phones

Scuffy

One of the Regulars
Messages
224
Location
Shores of Lake Erie
Gorgeous phone Lucky!!!

Okay I know I said I wouldn't repost the phone pix but I have to now! I'll just leave one in there. And without further adeu...


Maybe an old intercom or switch type phone? Call waiting?
Intercom.jpg


I wonder if Commissioner Gordon knows his phone is missing!!
Commisioner.jpg
 

Brinybay

Practically Family
Messages
571
Location
Seattle, Wa
I've been bitten...

...by the vintage phone bug. To the point where I want to learn to fix them myself. Has anybody here learned to work on them? The electronics don't seem to be too difficult.

Soon as I get one, I'm going to have a land line hooked up. I checked with the two phone service providers out here, Qwest and Comcast, they both support rotary phones. Next step is to get one at a decent price. There is a particular model I want to get, a Western Electric E1 D1, or one similar, like in the picture below:

WE_E1D1.jpg
 

Brinybay

Practically Family
Messages
571
Location
Seattle, Wa
Touch-tone menus when using a rotary, a solution

Here's an article I found on how to hook up a touch-tone pad to your rotary so you can still press 1 for this, that, or the other w/o having to hang up and call from one of them new-fangled touch tone phones:

http://atcaonline.com/ttpad.html
 

Sefton

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,132
Location
Somewhere among the owls in Maryland
Brinybay, the Western Electric E1 D1 is a great phone. I love mine, it has such a classic style. One of the best old phones ever. Since you seem to have been bitten by the vintage telephone bug (an incureable condition I,m afraid) try to get an original bakelite ringer box for it. Good luck.
 

ScionPI2005

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,335
Location
Seattle, Washington
That's an awesome phone, and would make a great addition to any collection.

In regards to phone repair, I haven't done too much. However, I have replaced the phone cord from the handset to the phone base on a vintage desktop phone I have. That wasn't too difficult. There's a vintage phone supply store online (I can't remember the name of it currently, but I'll try to look it up or someone else may know what I'm talking about). I ordered a phone cord from them...unscrewed the handset and the base...detached the phone wire clips from the terminals, and re-attached the new cord. It works fine now.

Brinybay said:
...by the vintage phone bug. To the point where I want to learn to fix them myself. Has anybody here learned to work on them? The electronics don't seem to be too difficult.

Soon as I get one, I'm going to have a land line hooked up. I checked with the two phone service providers out here, Qwest and Comcast, they both support rotary phones. Next step is to get one at a decent price. There is a particular model I want to get, a Western Electric E1 D1, or one similar, like in the picture below:

WE_E1D1.jpg
 

Brinybay

Practically Family
Messages
571
Location
Seattle, Wa
Sefton said:
Brinbay, the Western Electric E1 D1 is a great phone. I love mine, it has such a classic style. One of the best old phones ever. Since you seem to have been bitten by the vintage telephone bug (an incureable condition I,m afraid) try to get an original bakelite ringer box for it. Good luck.

Most of the ones I've seen do not come with the original ringer box, but I've been told you can get a modern equivalent for $15. That would be acceptable for me, I can still hunt around for a vintage ringer box.
 

Sefton

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,132
Location
Somewhere among the owls in Maryland
One place that has a large selection of vintage phones and parts is www.phonecoinc.com

That touch pad looks like a perfect solution although I'm afraid it's too much work for me. I just don't have the skills or patience for that sort of thing. I'll have to see if I can buy one already assembled. I think I can wire it into the phone myself though (or get some help from my wife the electrical engineer!)
 

Forgotten Man

One Too Many
Messages
1,944
Location
City Dump 32 E. River Sutton Place.
Brinybay said:
I want to get, a Western Electric E1 D1.

Well, that is a Western Electric model 102. The E1 is the model of handset it has and one of the best looking Western Electric handsets I feel.

That phone is what you see in most early WB movies! All the way up into the 40s you’ll see WE 102’s or 202 Oval bases. I own a WE 202 Oval base with the E1 handset and it’s my favorite phone!

Check out eBay; you could find one for under $100 bucks if you look hard… I bought mine for $80. or so… barn find it was but, I got it in the mail, dusted it all off and ordered the proper cords… hooked it up in 10 minutes and was working like a charm! Western Electric made a great phone and I would say that the 102s or 202s are some of the best especially when you have it in view when you’re watching an old WB picture and you see Edward G. pick one up! Then, you get the chills to hear the sound of it hanging up or being picked up or dialed and you recognize the sounds because YOURS SOUNDS THE SAME!!! Talk about a swell!

ScionPI2005 said:
awesome phone, and would make a great addition to any collection.

Ha, sounds like an eBay listing! lol
 

vitanola

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,254
Location
Gopher Prairie, MI
Scuffy said:
Gorgeous phone Lucky!!!

Okay I know I said I wouldn't repost the phone pix but I have to now! I'll just leave one in there. And without further adeu...


Maybe an old intercom or switch type phone? Call waiting?
Intercom.jpg

This 'phone was used with the Edison Televoice central dictation system.

Early installations used North Electric telephone carcasses, and later 1950's installations used Stromberg Carlson.
 

Brinybay

Practically Family
Messages
571
Location
Seattle, Wa
Forgotten Man said:
Check out eBay; you could find one for under $100 bucks if you look hard… I bought mine for $80. or so… barn find it was but, I got it in the mail, dusted it all off and ordered the proper cords…

You just answered my next couple of questions - What folks have been paying on the average and where you have been getting them.
 

Brinybay

Practically Family
Messages
571
Location
Seattle, Wa
Sefton said:
One place that has a large selection of vintage phones and parts is www.phonecoinc.com

That touch pad looks like a perfect solution although I'm afraid it's too much work for me. I just don't have the skills or patience for that sort of thing. I'll have to see if I can buy one already assembled. I think I can wire it into the phone myself though (or get some help from my wife the electrical engineer!)

Thanks for the link. I'm with you on not trying to build the tone pad myself. If/when I ever need one, I was going to try and contact the author and see how much he would want to sell one for, if he was so inclined.
 

David Conwill

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,854
Location
Bennington, VT 05201
Brinybay said:
You just answered my next couple of questions - What folks have been paying on the average and where you have been getting them.

A tip: try Craigslist first, or at least limit your eBay searches to your locale, because old phones are heavy (that's why they've lasted) and they cost a fortune to ship. If I recall correctly, my AE80 was something like $4.99 (nobody bid against me) but was going to be $15.00 to ship across town. Thankfully, it was only across town and I convinced the seller to drop it off to me at work.

-Dave
 

Brinybay

Practically Family
Messages
571
Location
Seattle, Wa
David Conwill said:
A tip: try Craigslist first, or at least limit your eBay searches to your locale, because old phones are heavy (that's why they've lasted) and they cost a fortune to ship. If I recall correctly, my AE80 was something like $4.99 (nobody bid against me) but was going to be $15.00 to ship across town. Thankfully, it was only across town and I convinced the seller to drop it off to me at work.

-Dave

Yup, been doing that, CL and eBay. It's safe now to tell you the pic I posted was a pic from a live auction on the latter, but has now closed. It went for $132.00 + shipping, is that too much? It was for me, I quit when it started getting over $80. I factor in the cost of shipping with the max I want to pay. In this case, it was $10.00 to ship it to Seattle, so I thought that was reasonable.

Sometimes I suspect that many sellers on eBay, not just phones, try to gouge the shipping costs as a way of not having to share the $ with eBay, but maybe I'm being too cynical. So far, the closest I could find any kind of vintage phone locally was a guy in Portland. Since my Mom lives in Vancouver, I could have it shipped to her place and kill two birds with one stone, get the phone and visit Mom. But it wasn't the style I really wanted, so I passed on it. I'll keep looking and try not to get too anxious and pay too much.

What about others here, do you mind sharing how much you paid for your phone?
 

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