… And Destroy Paris In A Night 😉
Here an impression of the red birds.
From the front to the back:
Mandarin Red – old case with old dial face without ringer, 1957 (actually the shell is dated 1955!)
Mandarin Red – old ear-piece with blank dial face and buzzer, 1961
Mandarin Red – new ear-piece with blank dial face and buzzer, 1971
PTT Red – with PTT dial face and buzzer, 1979
If you are from France, no worries. Just google a bit.
All plastic phones discolor in time, depending on the amount of smoke and sunlight they are exposed to during their lifetime. This can mostly be seen in the Mint Green, Pink variations and Wegdwood phones. But the color White is extremely sensitive to this process.
In the picture you see the shades of white that I encountered in 4 different PTT White phones. The one on the left is from my own collection and close to its original White. The other three are scrap shells with severe damage. But they have 1 thing in common, being the very same initial color: PTT White.
The second shell has some light yellowing, it is still okay to display and you won’t notice it too much, if it is not next to a shiny white one. Number 3 is a bit further in the process and the fourth shell is close to the Candle Glow color. Actually I bought this one as being a Candle Glow 🙁
So when you buy a phone, check the inside and the outside if you are able to. Take a screwdriver with you to open it up. In a lot of cases you will be able to see the color code (520…), although not all phones have it printed. After opening you can easily see the grade of yellowing it has gone through. Discoloring or yellowing is usually not happening on the inside. Sometimes around the holes the process can already be seen.
Also check under the stickers that are applied to the shell. The only way of getting rid of the white circle on the 3rd model is to sand the whole shell. So if you have a phone with a sticker, be carefull, because it is a lot of work.
Never scratch off a sticker. Paper stickers can be removed easily if you apply a wet tissue on top of them for about 15 minutes. Plastic stickers… use your nails to get them off. In both cases you can remove the glue residue with some ‘anti-sticker’ or oily substance. But make sure you clean it right after.
I noticed that some of the cases had a different setup of the holes in the ear-piece. The 3 Dutch PTT Ericofons (Red, Brown and White) always have the ‘small’ setup. I have not seen another version there.
But sofar these PTT phones are the only ones I have seen with the small version, except for the Persian Gray which I have in both versions as you can see. On the left the small version, on the right the large. It is just a small detail that I ran into. Not that important.
Recently I was able to get my hands on a green 700 model. The dial face is identical to the orange, a 12 button type.
The hard to get brown and the even harder to get blue are still missing. But in the end they will appear somewhere.
Some posts ago, on May 20th, I told you that I bought this blue Ericofon which I hoped was a Nordic Blue or Aqua Mist but it turned out to be a Wedgewood. Pictures sometimes do not reflect the right color if you buy phones online.
Its color needed to be restored and you can see the pre and post Wedgewood below.
Actually I am quite satisfied with the result. Now I need to find a new home for it because it is identical to the one I already have. Update: It is going to the United States.
There are only 5 different Ericofon 700’s if I am well informed. In the past couple of months I was able to get 2. In fact I was never intending to collect them because I fell in love with the old 600 model. But, as always, lines blur and you get carried away.
They are also equiped with the 2 different dial faces there are for the 700 model. An 11 and a 12 version button type. At least the 700 makes life less complicated.
Yeah, yeah, I need to get a gasket for the orange. I know.
Some posts ago I mentioned the Persian Greys being the only double color have. Well. actually I lied… Sorry for that.
There is also the Golden Glow that I, recently, could get. In fact the 2 Golden Glows slightly differ from one another.
One of them has the so called PBX button on its back. The other one has a very nice French dial face. So reasons enough to keep them both. Again…
…at least not so old as the ones in the previous post. These 2 Persian Gray phones are of the newer case. Both in grey but still with some small differences.
The 5 holes in the ear-piece are closer together in one model. The most common is the one in the left, the right one is more rare. Not sure where this difference in shell shape comes from.
There is another difference that can be seen in the picture below. So far I did not mention the phenomenon ‘dial face’. A zillion different ones are around. The one in the left is a not so common ‘manual service’ dial face.
And that is why I have 2 Persian Grays. 🙂
So, where am I with my collection today? As said, it is now growing slowly since it is getting more and more difficult to find new models and colors for a good price. Most of the common models and colors are there, but from time to time I run into something interesting. You have to be lucky sometimes.
An inventory learned that I currently have 3 old cases, 7 new cases (old ear-piece), 15 new cases (new ear-piece) and 1 model 700.
I try to avoid double colors of a certain model if there is no good reason but I have one double Persian Grey model. There is a small difference between the 2 ear-pieces that I’ll show you later. Besides the ear-piece difference, one of the Persian Greys does not have a regular dial face but a dial of the manual service Ericofon.
So the counter today stops at 26.
In total I bought 80 Ericofons so far. After cleaning, lubricating , fixing and restoring I sold a lot of them to other collectors all around the world. It really feels good to save them from ending up in the garbage and find a new home for them. The ones that could not be saved are used for spare parts. Only 7 shells are not recoverable. I should find some destination for these shells. Any ideas?
Suddenly I came across the Ericofon 700 model in white. I was never intending to buy one, but sometimes it is just hard to control yourself. *heheh*
The phone misses a few parts but I managed to get them from ‘somewhere’ so it will be complete in a few days. The surface of the phone looks great, the phone is even white and not discolored.
Updated with a new picture of the new button and gasket.
