atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems 1A2 and Comkey Telephones & Systems Western Electric Call Director

I haven't seen one of these in a long time. I wonder if it can be salvaged?

https://cgi.ebay.com/Western-Electr...ihZ010QQcategoryZ302QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
:confused:

From the pictures it looks intact for the most part but also looks like it has been stored in a barn or garage for a while which means corrosion is a major possibility. It would be nice to see what's under the cover.

Personally, I would not want to pay anything for it unless you needed it for parts maybe.
See if Ed has one in his warehouse if you really want one.

Nah. I saw the set on eBay and just wanted to see what others thought about it. :toothy:

It looks like the seller has a few different versions of that phone listed on eBay.

I cant believe how much the call director NEW IN BOX he is selling is going for. $670.00 with 1 day and 22 hours to go

https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200083527516

I think the listing is a total fake job to jack up the price and spook collectors into buying in. They get their friends, or alternate e-bay screen names to bid, jacking up the price. This excites potential "real" buyers. Scamming e-bay sellers make it a point to mask the competing bidders' identities. This looks like a classic case.

If it "sells" to themselves, and they see people competitively bidding, they get an idea as to what they can expect to fetch. They simply fake a completed tranaction between themselves. THEN, they offer a "second chance offer" to the last high bidder. They tell the victim that the original high bidder (themself) never paid, so they will sacrifice the sale of the item for a lower price. Pretty shifty to say the least.

Granted, these phones are perhaps the foundation of our livelihoods, and they are very valuable to collectors, but not worth that much money. We aren't talking about brand-new "Victrolas" in the original factory box.

On the other hand, a factory-new Call Director is extremely rare. I am confident that this one is new since Western Electric products had their name printed in BLUE on the box if new and if it was factory-refurbished, it would be GREEN. His looks legitimately new, but still not worth that kind of money.

So this explains the high prices for this junk. I always wondered who pays that kind of $$$$$ and what do they do with those old phones? recently I had someone come to our office and see the 1a2 phone on my desk and tell me he bought one in an antique store and wanted to hook it up. It shocked me to see he paid 50.00 for a standard 2565 set! He had never seen a "shoebox" ksu and is kind of amazed that I rigged up one under the desk along with a Sipura box to use with our phone system.

What's with this "bidder x" nonsense on Ebay? You used to be able to see who was dumb enough to overpay for this stuff!