500 - Black - 50's Style

Western Electric 500 - 50's Style

History

From Northern Electric, The classic 500. The Model 500 came about as a replacement for the model 302 and quickly became the new workhorse of Northern and Western Electric line of telephones. The 500 was manufactured in many colours over the years but originally in black, brown, white, beige, blue, green, pink, and yellow.

The Restoration Process

Dial – The dial is an early 7C that has been fully disassembled, cleaned, lubed and timed to ensure years of trouble free service. We have sandblasted the finger wheel / dial ring and powder coated in a semi-gloss black. We have also added a brand new die cut dial card and acetate.

Cords – The phone has been outfitted with brand new vinyl cords and the line cord has a modular connection to facilitate a modern connection to your wall jack.

Shell – The 50's style soft plastic shell has been painstakingly put through a multi-step restoration process which includes sanding with 400, 800, 1000, 2000 grit. This ensures that there are no scratches, dents or dings. The shell is them carefully buffed on our two step buffing wheels. This takes out the fine abrasions left by sanding and leaves the plastic with a smooth factory fresh finish. Finally we apply a three step plastic restoration compound. This leaves the plastic with a beautiful high gloss finish. Don’t be fooled by other plastic 500’s where they are simply painted, we have the real deal.

Handset – The Bakelite handset has been ultrasonically cleaned to get all embedded debris. It is then sanded with the same process as the shell and buffed back to its beautiful original shine.

Base – The base is completely stripped of all its components and sandblasted clean. It is then painted in a gloss black and sealed with clear coat.  The components are then cleaned, tested and reinstalled.

Do you currently have any rotary phones? If the answer is no, it is always a good idea to call your local phone company and check if they still support “pulse” dialing. If they do, you are all set to go. If they do not, your phone will not be able to place calls without a converter. We have internal converters for this type of setup available for $79.95 (installed during assembly)

- Dials * and # from your rotary phone to access computerized services.
- Use legacy equipment on tone-only lines.
- Compatible with VOIP services.
- Provides last number redial functionality.
- Adds 7 programmable speed dial locations

As an alternative, we provide an option to use this phone as an extension of your cell phone. The XLink Bluetooth gateway will allow you to make and receive calls using a vintage rotary dial through a Bluetooth connection to your cell phone.

The phone goes through extensive testing before to ensure it is in perfect working condition prior to shipping.