Category Archives: colors

Panic

Last month I bought a set of 5 phones from an online auction in the US. These came from the very large collection of P. Fassbender, who was selling everything via an auctioneer. There were 2 phones that I really wanted to have from a lot of 5 and since the price was fair I just had to buy them. A Golden Glow and Persian Gray, both new case flat.

The box ended up in an international mail handling center in Amsterdam. There it turned out to be ‘technically undeliverable’ because it was lacking my house-number. Contact with the mail department resulted in a confirmation that I was fully right on the package, and that it would be shipped back to the US… In the Netherlands we call this the ‘purple crododile syndrom‘. Manual intervention was not possible, the triumph of bureaucracy. Four weeks later, after another trip to the sender and back to me to add just 2 digits, the box arrived. Together with another box, from Sweden. Unpack party!!!

These are all the phones that arrived last Friday. The second and third from the left being added to my collection. They turned out to be in very good condition. The one on the right is a manual with PBX but has some damage. The four will be available for other collectors soon.

Panic, well, let’s not exagerate. But this event did indeed have an effect on my heartrate. 🙂

Shipping remains an enervating activity from time to time as you can see in the picture below. Luckily the package was not damaged and the phone inside was not a very exotic model. But if you ship a phone in a plastic bag without any protection…

But sometimes it is funny as well… This box was filled on 3 sides with approximately 75 different stamps. Unfortunately I gave up this hobby at the age of 18. 🙁

Going Up

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Last week I was removing some ear-pieces from a few old case Ericofon ‘necks’. Those necks were part of a large batch of parts that I got some time ago. And I desperately needed the speakers for other Ericofons (some New Old Shells or NOS) to be completed. When I was opening up one after another a surprising result was revealed to the world ;-). Never before I had a good look at the inside of the old case ear-piece. And this is what I saw.

The only information about the necks is actually this. There was no body of the shell attached, only the top part was there. So I do not know anything on the origin of the shell. These numbers seems to be some kind of color code, or…?

The known color codes, at least to me, are the ones from the models produced by North Electric in the US market. Here they are listed in ascending order:

North Electric Color Codes
Code	Color	Code	Color
520536	Taj Mahal	520545	Chartreuse
520537	Sandalwood	520546	Aqua Mist
520538	Sahara	520547	Accent Green
520539	Royal Dubonnet	520548	Charcoal
520540	Riviera	520549	Wedgewood
520541	Princess/Petal Pink	520550	Mandarin Red
520542	Nordic Blue	520551	Persian Gray
520543	Golden Glow	520552	Crystal Mint
520544	Dusty Rose	520553	Candle Glow

Plotting the numbers from the picture in the same table gives a very surprising result…

Generic Color Codes
Code US	Code	Color	Code US	Code	Color
520536	510852	Taj Mahal	520545		Chartreuse
520537	510853	Sandalwood	520546		Aqua Mist
520538		Sahara	520547		Accent Green
520539		Royal Dubonnet	520548		Charcoal
520540		Riviera	520549		Wedgewood
520541		Princess/Petal Pink	520550	510866	Mandarin Red
520542		Nordic Blue	520551		Persian Gray
520543		Golden Glow	520552	510868	Crystal Mint
520544		Dusty Rose	520553	510869	Candle Glow

The pattern matches with the colorsequence. If the other colors exist the numbering should be logical. Where the numbering comes from I still have to sort out. Is it Swedish numbering? But then the NE specific colors should also be applicable in Sweden? Or is it just the shell number? The 5205xx code seems to be a combination of manufacturer, ringer and color. So more a configuration code. No idea on this (yet). Need to dig somewhat deeper into this.

I appologize the way I removed the ear-pieces, it was not subtle… I admit. But opening up one after another made me more curious on the next number.

Disclaimer: for this experiment no Ericofon was harmed.

The Dreamer Is Still Asleep II

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In the last couple of months I have found some special models to expand my collection with but the most special is the one showed below. Remember the post where I received a painted Accent Green (February 2015) and totally reworked it to remove the paint? Well, it is no longer alone.

A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to buy another Accent Green. I was not sure what model is was, but since the price was right it did not really matter. There was a slight suspicion it was a New Case, and when I received it yesterday, it definitly turned out to be one.

The Old Case is ‘rather common’, there are more collectors who have one, but the New Case is not so regular. At least that is my vision, because I have never seen one before. I know that Richard from ericofon.com has listed one in his collection recently.

It is a fully original Ericofon from 1960, with color code 520547. Even the ring around the microphone is Accent Green. The chassis is a K7 with an Ericotone 2 ringer. This color was produced until the early 1960’s and not sold in other markets than the US so most of them are Old Cases. By the way, the Old Case is from 1959. Comparing the detailed dates, the breakpoint of the Old to New Case should be around Q4-1959 – Q1-1960.

The phone is in a very good shape, only a few minor marks on the shell. The Old Case, and this picture makes that more visible, is a little less shiny. This is because of the sanding and polishing process.

If all is well there are 2 more nice phones on their way and I hope they will arrive in a week or 2. and that should be it for 2015 I expect. I am broke… Will keep you posted.

Who’ll tell?

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Who’ll tell which phone is what?

Today I received my North Electric Brown phone. A real one this time, after the interesting but slightly disappointing CEAC model (see post of December 2014).

Here are the 3 brown Ericofons in a row. There is a slight color difference between the CEAC and the NE. The PTT brown can clearly be recognized.

North Electric, CEAC painted and PTT Brown

The inside of the North Electric shell does not reveal any information on the production date. The chassis is from ’59 and the microphone from ’63. Does not say anything but if it is an original set, it was also compiled out of spare parts.

Metal In The Head

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Well, I do not know what it is these days but there is some metal in the air I would say. Or maybe it is in my head…. not sure.

After the two Aztec Gold phones of last months I was able to get myself a Chrome Plated Ericofon shell. And that is a painted North Electric.

It is a shell only so I have to sort out some parts and compile a new phone myself. The shell and the cap come separated as well. I never had this before so getting the speaker in and attaching the cap is a new thing to me. Actually I am not sure on the quality of the Chrome, I haven’t seen any pictures yet. But I heard there are some water spots on it. So it is going to be a surprise. Let’s see where it will end up. For sure there will be some pictures when it arrives.

Update 08/08/2015:

My DIY Chrome Plated arrived today. And I am very pleased with it. See here the parts that I received. Niiiiice!! The shell is in pretty good shape, some minor scratches here and there, from storage I assume, but overall it is very well conserved. Never used, never assembled before.

It is a sandalwood in its original color. Not dated. Even the chassis is not dated, only marked with K14. And this is the first time I see a ‘fresh’ shell and earpiece combination.

Let’s wire it up and get it working. 🙂

Update 08/09/15:

Finally I had some time to put the DIY phone together. Piece of cake if you have all the ingredients right there but the speaker delivered with it was not original Ericsson. So I had to get another speaker from an old shell that I still had. Removing the earpiece to get it out is not that obvious. I really tried to open it in a neat way, but I did not succeed like that ;-). Felt like opening up an oyster. I got the pearl in the end but it was a big mess. An interesting experience it was.

Putting the parts together is quite simple. First glueing the speaker on the earpiece, then soldering a wire, glueing the earpiece in the shell, soldering the wire to the contacts in the proper lenght and that’s it.

Actually I did the same trick for my Taj Mahal. That shell was so bad that I replaced it with a new unused shell that I got in the same deal.

Here’s the result for the Chrome Plated. Looks very very shiny.

(With The Broadest Shoulders)

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On this sunny day I received another shining Aztec Gold model. 🙂

This one has a flat ear-piece and it is in a much better shape than the wedge. It is not such a big ‘mess’ when it comes to parts as the wedge. It has consistent ‘part-management’ so to say.

This phone came originally in the color 520553, which is Candle Glow. The date on the chassis is 1967, the date on the shell is 1968. So this is pretty much in line. The only dissonant item is the microphone, which dates back to 1957. But hey, there are worst things in life. There is an Ericotone version 3 ringer inside as well.

What I noticed today is that both Aztec Gold have some silver layer underneath the gold. This is applied as a primer I expect. Not sure, but from the insides they look the same. Tape-shaped original color and silver sprayed inside.

Gold Is The Metal

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Yeehaa! Today I received my Aztec Gold Ericofon. The gold paint has some wear and needs to be restored here and there. But that I already knew upfront. Actually I did not have too much time this evening to check it out but there is one thing that I wanted to know: the insides.

I unpacked it and removed the chassis to check what was inside. Hmm…

So what do we have?

A K14 rotary chassis with an Ericotone version 3 ringer and a standard North Electric dial face. The shell was something to puzzle about. It is a Taj Mahal TouchTone shell that was adapted to fit a rotary chassis (thanks Richard!). Looking into the shell you will see that there are plastic cubes glued into the shell to fit the 4 screws. The receiver is soldered directly to the contacts because the contact pads are missing. Also the microphone is glued into the shell. A weird combination of parts, most likely put together by North Electric.

Update the day after:

As you can the see the shell has some wear and damage on the paint. In the next few weeks I will try to restore this. Not sure yet how I want to do this. The advantage I have is that the surface is not very smooth. It looks like, and that is the purpose of this Aztec Gold, that small water drops are all over the phone.

In the pictures below you can see the details of the shell and the contacts. Since the shell is a Touch Tone, there are no brackets to mount the chassis on. This is resolved with the plastic parts glued inside the shell. Very creative. The speaker is glued into the shell as well and can’t be removed. The contacts are fixed to the speaker wires.

The strange thing is that under the dial face the chassis is marked with week 19, 1972. On the top of the chassis it is dated with week 42, 1974. My conclusion is that the original chassis was made in 1972 but that this phone was put together in 1974. Because Touch Tones were produced until 1972, the stock with TT shells was obsolete in 1974 and used for other purposes.

As I understood, the Aztec Gold phones appear in different versions (rotary, Touch Tone and also with a flat ear-piece). This Aztec Gold was produced in the aftermath of North Electric, just before they sold their Ericofon assets to CEAC.

Love’s Secret Domain

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For some reason this week is ‘the week of the brown phones’. Not sure what it is, but they seem to be everywhere these days… 🙂

Which reminded me of my Brown 700 I got in November last year. I purchased it from Ebay at a time that there was a lot of activity ongoing so I never posted anything about it but it just showed up in stealth mode in my collection.

I got a chance to buy it and although it was relatively expensive; it is not an obvious model and it is playing hard to get; it was a good deal. So I was very glad that I got it.

When I received the phone in the mail and I inspected it, I noticed a small damaged spot on the back. A very small crack or so, hardly to be seen, only with the right light. It must have been dropped once. Marks from daily usage in its 40 year existence. The lady who sold it to me, must not even have noticed it, I am sure. But that is not what I wanted to say about it.

There was a note with the phone and I want to share it here:

‘A bit of history of this phone!!

Thorn EMI merged with LM Ericsson in the 1970’s. My then husband was the production manager at Thorn EMI and was a fully qualified Post Office Telecommunications Engineer.

Thorn Ericsson as they became known, re-located from Rochester Kent to a purpose built factory in Scunthorpe in 1974 and we moved to that area with them.

Not long after that, this phone was purchased from the staff shop at the factory, it has been in my possession ever since.

The factory for Thorn Ericsson closed in the late 1980’s and the site is now derelict.

This phone has a long history, please look after it.’

Reading through the text I appreciated this phone’s history. A living ‘thing’. The crack is there with a reason. Something happened on a windy winter night… I imagine. This is not the first time that I get a phone with a personal note. Phones from childhood, from parents, from the attic etc. And that is what I like so much on collecting this model. Phones with a story, with a history. But this one was for some reason special. The text in the note touched me, written with so much memory and specially love.

Here it is, reunited with its family. Thank you, I’ll look after it!!

Next post will be less sentimental, I promiss 😉

The Dreamer Is Still Asleep

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Today there was a package with the mail… I was expecting something nice: an Old Case Taj Mahal, and I was really looking forward to receiving this bargain. But when I opened he box, a monster came out of it. A very badly painted Old Case shell in a weird white/gray color. What a disappointment! And the pictures looked so nice before I bought it. The seller never mentioned the paint so I was a bit mad at him as well 😉

So, still recovering from the shock, and very disappointed I started to check what I was able to create out of this ‘thing’. Didn’t have a clue. The shell seems to be okay, it is an old case, always a bit special. The dial face was cracked, but that I already knew. I decided to open it up and see what was inside.

And then the real shock came!

It seems to be an old case Accent Green or Kelly Green shell that was painted.

This is a weird surprise. So… what is next? I do not have a clue on how to restore this one. But I have to get started somewhere. Both the shell and chassis are from 1959 so I expect it is an original set.

The day was still fresh so I decided to do some investigations on the paint and create my strategy from there (picture below on the left). Carefully sanding of the white paint the black paint became visible. Black took a long time, it was a thick layer. I felt like a paleontologist that was revealing a dino skeleton. Getting through the black some light purple showed. And finally the green became visible.

The paint could not be removed chemically, I carefully tried some methods but I was too afraid to damage the plastic of the shell. Although I have tested the chemicals on an old shell before. So sanding remains the only option, also indicated by the experts that I consulted. The result of the first day is shown in the right picture. To be continued in the next few weeks…

What a day! I guess I am still dreaming.

Update 12/03/2015: After a well deserved week off to the south of Spain I started again with the sanding process. Slowly the paint came off so the white and black are now fully gone. There still is some purple to get rid off. At certain places is was very hard to remove this first layer since it seems that it has intruded the plastic here and there. So I had to use 180 grid paper to remove it all.

But the good thing is that the shell is completely intact. No cracks or damage. In the second picture of this post, you could see a strange spot on the back. But that turned out to be a painting issue. Phew! Sofar I spend some 12 hours of work on this little sweety, but she’s worth it. The result you see here is the raw result of sanding with 180 grid.

Update 13/03/2015: Ready!! Friday the 13th… but I dared to finish the phone today. And no, I did not mess up the shell at all with my tools.

After a 180, 320, 400, 600, 800 and 1000 grid paper treatment and a good polishing the result is just very good. As this is the first fully painted Ericofon that I have restored it was quite a challenge. Not sure if I would go through this process for every phone. It took me in total over 16 hours to get it in this shape.

It is hard to get the same colors every time while taking pictures with sunlight and a camera only. But I prefer not to use lights or flash. Anyway: here she is. The dial face has a small crack around the 4 but I’ll leave it this way. Part of the phone’s history. Friday the 13th brings bad luck? Don’t believe so.

Sometimes

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you are lucky!

It happened to me last week. Thanks to a very friendly collector I was able to complete the 700 series. He wanted to get rid of the Blue 700 and I wanted it as a last piece in the 700 puzzle. So we came to a good deal for both. Thanks a lot Peter, I am so happy with it! She is in good hands.

Never dreamt to have the blue model so fast. But it is really there, nice and shiny, like new. It is a 12 button model from 1980, fully operational.

By the way, the pushbuttons of the 700 do not produce DTMF tones as you might expect. They produce pulses, similar to the rotary dial models. This is all state of the art pre-DTMF technology.