Hi Guys,

Does anyone know if WECO/AT&T painted 1A2 phones a different color from the original color? I have a guy who I have bought lots of stuff from before and he has a wall phone that I would like to buy. Its aqua blue but it looks like the original color was beige inside the housing of the phone. Did they do this after the Breakup of the Bell System? If they did do this, did anyone had any issues with the new paint chipping off or scathing?


Thanks Brian

Sounds like a poor DIY job. Remember to look for the stamp on the base of the phone. It would reveal the color of the housing associated with the base.

Someone could always change housings at a later date and/or paint it.

Here is a link to decipher the color code for WE phones: Color Code Chart

Sure, they painted them all kinds of colors over different ones, pre-divestiture or not. It was quite common to see basic colors, such as white or ivory as the base color for many of the more unusual colors. They often didn't need to set up a full production run for 50 green 2565s when they could just paint white ones.

They did. I have a Cherry Red 2851 wall telephone which is factory painted and all components are different original color (even handset caps are different base colors).

I recently saw a Turquoise 565 phone which is apparently turquoise painted over a beige plastic body.

I have a 30-button refurbished Call Director from Bell Canada, which is painted over green plastic shell and the satin silver 200 conductor cord is originally beige. Another 18-buttons Western Electric Call Director has a satin silver cord painted over originally green cord.

I assume they painted whatever they had for refurb, not always matching the color of original plastic. There are lots of mutants created by them in refurbishment.

But keep in mind: factory painted is 100% equivalent to the original plastic color and in case of Aqua Blue color it is much more stable to yellowing than plastic. Aqua Blue is one of the most unstable colors.

Our local telco had a refurb shop in the central warehouse and would repaint sets as required to meet demand