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 »

One of my latest telephone refurbish projects is this handsome North Electric “Galion” phone.  So called because it was manufactured by the North Electric Company of Galion, Ohio.  Early models of this phone were made with metal housings but were later made of Bakelite.

North Electric "Galion" Phone

Although North Electric (not to be confused with Northern Electric of Canada) did manufacture their own dials, they also released phones with dials from other manufacturers.  This particular telephone was made in 1953 with an Automatic Electric rotary dial. Read the rest of this post »

Western Electric Model 302 - E1 Handset

A woman in Massachusetts sent me her Western Electric Model 302 to be refurbished. Her father had given her the phone years ago to use as a toy. She had told me how as a young girl she played “operator” using this classic old telephone. She would emulate Lilly Tomlin’s character from the 1960’s television show, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In by dialing a number and pretending to be the operator. Now many years later with a family of her own, she wants the phone to look nice again as well as being a usable working telephone. There was one unusual aspect of the telephone however, that was mentioned as a “by the way” type of thing. Read the rest of this post »

I am often asked what I do to make my Vintage Rotary Phones shine the way they do. It’s really not magic—just some good ole elbow grease and lots of Novus polish. Novus is sold in three grades, simply called Novus 1, Novus 2 and Novus 3.

I use Novus on both plastic and Bakelite. Once I have cleaned the plastic in warm soapy water I allow the plastic to dry. Then multiple coats of Novus 2 will not only polish the plastic but will also remove light scratches. Novus 2 is the work-horse of the three. If I could only have one of the three, I would buy Novus 2. It just does such a great job as is evidenced by this red model 500 I restored a few months ago. Read the rest of this post »