Back in May of this year I was contacted by a gentleman in the San Francisco area.  He told me that he had been holding on to a telephone that once belonged to his grandmother.  The phone had been sitting in a closet for twenty-five years, since he purchased it from the Telephone Company after his grandmother passed.  Jim wrote in part,  “My Grandmother loved to talk on the telephone and many of my fondest memories are of her sitting in her big chair talking on it.  I believe the phone is a Western Electric Model 202 from 1930-1937.”

Jim asked if I could refurbish the phone and agreed to e-mail me photographs.  I told him that I was sure I could help and the phone was soon headed east.This is one of the photos that Jim e-mailed to me.  Attached to the ringer box was a smaller box with a switch on the top.  It was unfamiliar to me but I guessed that it either switched to a second phone line or was used to switch the ringer on and off.  It looks like there were several coats of paint after all these years.  I had my work cut out for me—but it looked like it was going to be a fun project. Read the rest of this post »

Some ten days after I began this project the Western Electric Model 354 wall phone is finally ready to hang on the wall. I had ordered some replacement rubber dial gaskets so that I could put a new one between the dial and the housing of the phone. They apparently got lost in the mail but eventually reached me and the project could go forward. Read the rest of this post »

This Bakelite Western Electric F1 handset and associated parts are all dated similarly to the rest of the telephone—September of 1952. I have cleaned and polished my share of Bakelite handsets and this one is one of the nicest handsets “as removed from service.” As always I wash the plastic in warm sudsy water and then apply liberal amounts of Novus #2 polish. Read the rest of this post »

My current “project” of refurbishing a Western Electric model 354 has brought me to the ringer assembly. Since I have removed all of the components of the phone from the base plate, or chassis the ringer assembly does not escape from being cleaned. From my experience however, I have learned that less is more. As I have mentioned in an earlier posting, I have learned not to disassemble the ringer much beyond removing the gongs in order to avoid causing the ringer assembly to lose magnetism, thus effecting the performance. Read the rest of this post »