James Lemon
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- Thread starter James Lemon
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Doug Kerr
Well-known member
James Lemon
Well-known member
Thank you Doug! You always amaze me with your analytical skills.
Doug Kerr
Well-known member
Hi, James,
In fact, we can be pretty sure that this is in fact a 2554B and not a 2554BM, which is identical except that is has a plug-mounted handset cord.
The clue is that we can see (with a little imagination) a slight thickening of the handset cord near the handset, a molded-in "strain relief" feature that the non-plug-ended cords had. Such was impractical on plug-ended cords and so they had no strain relief.
Did that mean that they might wear out sooner from flexing near the handset? Yes. But then they were so easy to replace (the eventual practice, if the existing cord was not inoperative, just ragged, was to mail a new one to the customer along with instructions for plugging it in.
It was a wondrous era.
You an imagine it is hell to watch, with me, a film in which telephone sets appear. "Well, that is clearly a 6-type dial, but the sound is of a 5-type, in not a very good state of adjustment, I might add." Or, "Oh crap, look at that prop department item label on the bottom of that 500D." (Bell System telephone sets "never" had any kind of paper labels on their bottoms.)
Another rampant problem in films of a certain era was that many films were made in the greater Los Angeles area, and much of that area was served by non-Bell System telephone companies, which at the time mostly used telephone sets made by Automatic Electric Company, not Western Electric Company. Thus, many of the film prop guys were most familiar with the Automatic Electric telephone sets (that's what they probably had at home), and often much of the prop inventory was of Automatic Electric sets mooched from the local (non-Bell) telephone company. Thus we would often see, in a scene set in downtown Manhattan (served by a Bell System company) a character speaking into an Automatic Electric model 80.
And even worse, the Automatic Electric sets always used a dial with a wholly different mechanical principle than the various dials used over the years in Western Electric sets, and the two genres had quite distinctive sounds, but we would often see what must have been one kind but heard the other.
Thanks again for the great shot.
Best regards,
Doug
Well, it's a result of years of obsessing with telephone sets (something for which I really never had any official responsibility during my years in the telecom business but was my first area of contact with the "network").
In fact, we can be pretty sure that this is in fact a 2554B and not a 2554BM, which is identical except that is has a plug-mounted handset cord.
The "M" is mnemonic for "modular", the description of telephone sets where all the cords are plug-ended, meaning that a combination of a certain "base", a specific kind of handset (perhaps with some special feature, such as a receiving amplifier), and specific length cords could be assembled at curbside.
The clue is that we can see (with a little imagination) a slight thickening of the handset cord near the handset, a molded-in "strain relief" feature that the non-plug-ended cords had. Such was impractical on plug-ended cords and so they had no strain relief.
Did that mean that they might wear out sooner from flexing near the handset? Yes. But then they were so easy to replace (the eventual practice, if the existing cord was not inoperative, just ragged, was to mail a new one to the customer along with instructions for plugging it in.
It was a wondrous era.
You an imagine it is hell to watch, with me, a film in which telephone sets appear. "Well, that is clearly a 6-type dial, but the sound is of a 5-type, in not a very good state of adjustment, I might add." Or, "Oh crap, look at that prop department item label on the bottom of that 500D." (Bell System telephone sets "never" had any kind of paper labels on their bottoms.)
Another rampant problem in films of a certain era was that many films were made in the greater Los Angeles area, and much of that area was served by non-Bell System telephone companies, which at the time mostly used telephone sets made by Automatic Electric Company, not Western Electric Company. Thus, many of the film prop guys were most familiar with the Automatic Electric telephone sets (that's what they probably had at home), and often much of the prop inventory was of Automatic Electric sets mooched from the local (non-Bell) telephone company. Thus we would often see, in a scene set in downtown Manhattan (served by a Bell System company) a character speaking into an Automatic Electric model 80.
And even worse, the Automatic Electric sets always used a dial with a wholly different mechanical principle than the various dials used over the years in Western Electric sets, and the two genres had quite distinctive sounds, but we would often see what must have been one kind but heard the other.
Thanks again for the great shot.
Best regards,
Doug