Model 500 telephone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Western Electric Model 500 telephone was the standard desk-style telephone set used by AT&T (the Bell System) in North America from the late 1940s through the divestiture of AT&T in 1984, with production continuing today. Many millions of Model 500 phones were produced and were a familiar sight in almost every home in America. Numbers of WE 500 phones are still in use today thanks to their unparalleled durability, cheap prices, and ample availability on the secondhand market. As of 2006, Model 500 phones can be found at yard sales as low as 25 cents or even free. The basic phone's modular construction not only made manufacture and repair simple, but also made possible a large number of variants and derivatives with different details and features. A touch-tone variant, the WE Model 2500, first introduced in the 1960s, is still in production today by several manufacturers.
[edit] History And Development
The original WE Model 500 was designed by the firm of famed industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss, the product of several years of research and testing, and introduced in 1949. The 500 replaced the Dreyfuss-designed Western Electric Model 302, introduced in 1937, and improved upon several areas of design that were problematic in the earlier models. For example, the WE 302 had the numbers inside the finger-holes, which were printed on a porcelain dial plate. After years of use, the numbers and the even the porcelain coating would wear off the dial plate. The 500 corrected this by moving the numbers outside of the finger holes, and molding them into the plastic instead of printing them on the surface. This numbering arrangement also had the benefit of reducing the number of mis-dialed calls.
During its long service lifetime, the 500 was not without its critics. The phone's blocky and uninspired styling was considered merely adequate in 1949. The phone's internals remained little changed over the years, and the sheer weight of the phone and its handset were an obstacle for some users, notably the elderly and the physically challenged. By the early 1960s, European desk designs such as the German Bundespost FeAp 61, made by Krone, and the Dutch PTT Type 65 (made by Ericsson, Krone, NSEM, and HEEMAF) offered cleaner lines, lighter and more ergonomic handsets, adjustable ringer volume, and a compact, lightweight base designed for comfort and portability. Other designs, such as the Italian Siemens/Italtel 'Grillo', designed in 1965 by Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper, and the Swedish Ericofon, designed in the late 1940s by Gösta Thames, Ralph Lysell, and Hugo Blomberg, made the 500 look positively ancient in comparison.
Originally, the 500 was available only in black and had a rotary dial with a black-painted metal fingerwheel (black remained the most popular color throughout the model's production, and the Model 500 has been affectionately nicknamed by some as "the black brick"). Within a few years the Model 500 began to be made in a variety of colors, and the metal finger-wheel was replaced with a clear plastic rotary dial. The 500 was also the first phone to use the heavy "G"-style handset, which remains familiar as the standard handset on public payphones.
Telephones derived from the basic Model 500, using some if not most of the same components, included the Model 554 wall-mounted phone and the 1500 and 2500 touch-tone phones. In the mid-1950s, in order to avoid disposing of older phones, Western Electric manufactured a 500-style plastic replacement shell to update the appearance of the 302, calling it the Model 5302. This model used the internal components of Western Electric's earlier Model 302 phone, sometimes fitted with a F-series handset. [1]
Because phones in the Bell System were owned by the telephone company, which was responsible for keeping them in good repair, the Model 500 was designed to avoid repairs at all costs. As a result, it was extremely rugged and reliable, and intended to last for decades. The 1940s-era technology of the 500 makes extensive use of solid metal components and point-to-point wiring, and most components are simple to remove and replace.
Like all telephones of the time in the United States, WE Model 500 phones were owned by local Bell System telephone companies--all of which were in turn owned by AT&T, which also owned Western Electric itself--and leased on a monthly basis by customers. This monopoly made millions of extra dollars for AT&T, which had the secondary effect of greatly limiting phone choices and styles. AT&T strictly enforced policies against buying and using phones by other manufacturers that had not first been transferred to and re-rented from AT&T. Many 500s made by Western Electric thus carried the following disclaimer permanently molded into their housings: "BELL SYSTEM PROPERTY--NOT FOR SALE." Telephones also labeled with a sticker marking the Bell Operating Company that owned the telephone. After some consumers began buying phones from other manufacturers anyway, AT&T changed its policy for its Design Line telephone series by selling customers the phone's housing, retaining ownership of the mechanical components - which still required paying AT&T a monthly leasing fee.
However, in 1983, after being forced into divestiture by the courts, AT&T started selling phones outright to the public through its then-new American Bell division. AT&T found itself unable to compete either in price or in selection with existing WE phone designs, and eventually closed its telephone manufacturing plants.
[edit] Other WE 500 Manufacturers
Beginning in the early 50s 500-style phones were also made under license by ITT Kellogg (now Cortelco, still manufactures 2500 and 2554 sets in Corinth, MS USA) and Stromberg-Carlson (now part of Siemens). Cortelco still distributes the originally rotary design, now marketed as the Cortelco ITT-500AS (desk phone) and Cortelco ITT-554AS (wall phone). Though the basic design of these modern rotary phones is the same as that introduced in 1949, the quality of components has been reduced. Due to the low demand for rotary phones, Cortelco does not offer the 500 for sale over their own website, only through specialty retailers.
| Western Electric telephone models |
|---|
| Basic models: Magneto | Candlestick | 102 | 202 | 302 | 500 Special models: 5302 | Trimline | Princess | Design Line |
| See also: Bell System | GTE | Stromberg Carlson | ITT | Henry Dreyfuss |
