I have a western electric 500 d/m set with the ridiculous notches for the modular jacks. Im looking to convert it to non modular and have all the parts except the un-notched housing. If anyone has an extra they would like to part with I'm in the market for one. It is the slightly darker red color, not a bright red. Thank you.

You might be able to get one from THESE PEOPLE.

Thanks, Ed. But unfortunately they don't have one. I was hoping some of our retired Bell system members with basements full of wonder might have one kicking around. Not opposed to buying the whole phone if the price is right. I have a small collection of 500 sets and the only modular one is my red one. I even just found a pink one that will be coming in a few days. Can't wait!

The powder blue telephone looks nice! Are they all Western Electric?

I must confess there is an imposter within the group. Only one... Any guesses?

One of them is a Northern Electric.

Its the white one.

The black telephone? Oh..never mind.

In a few days I will have a pretty in pink 500 opposite the blue one.

What other colors did WECO have in those days? I haven't seen much else on epay or the usual sites.

Every once in a while I'll see a poster or two that shows various colored phones up for sale on eBay. Arthur has quite a collection of phones. I think he posted some pictures a while back.

I'm considering collecting princess phones next. Rotary of course. I want my 500 set collection relatively complete, colorwise, before that though. I don't have the time or money to start chasing down models with dial lights, exclusion switches or 2-line models just yet. Those are all connected, by the way. I'm a little leary of connecting any more to my partner system though. Even though I only have 2 max on any port, I don't want to overload the power supplies every time the phone rings. It's pretty ridiculous as it is. The cats hit the ceiling every time I get a call.

My pink 500 finally arrived!

They came in black, white, beige, ivory, yellow, green, red, blue, turquoise, light gray, pink, clear, dark brown, dark blue, dark beige, dark gray, and a few other special-order colors. One of the members of TCI had a display of all the 500 colors at the recent Lancaster annual meet. ITT made sets in "ash" which is a color that is sort of in-between ivory and gray.

In later years "white" became known as "Dove Gray".

A check of the 900 series telephones manufactured by Philips for AT&T/Lucent shows the telephone boxes were labeled as such. The coiled handset cord included with the 900 series models was a perfect match for white Western Electric telephones.

When VTech acquired the Consumer Product line from Lucent in 2000, the white color changed to a bright white, thus rendering the older white cords a poor match.

SC and probably ITT made orange sets, too.

Still have a ITT in orange.

I would love an SC or ITT in orange but the prices are ridiculous on ebay and such. I also just added a payphone to my collection. I got it to work but it needs reprogramming. Its some sort of Intellicall unit. It has an external 24vac wall wart and has a terrible voice that tells you to add more money.

This is it:

You're running a bunch of topics into one. Try to keep them clean so if anyone searches the board it's easier for them to find. This topic is about looking for a red 500, let's keep it to that subject.

Thanks.

Send me a private email, letting me know your shipping address.

info (AT) sibta (DOT) com

Pink telephones are very calming. Just ask Arthur.

Thank you Arthur.