Hi,

I have a very basic newbie question about the 500 phones. I have several 500s that I have acquired over the years, and I am starting to get them cleaned and working. I have noticed that some of them have cords with four wires red, green, black, yellow, while others have three wires, red, green, and yellow.

Was this a party line thing or simply an economic thing (three wire must be less expensive than four wire)? I know that the early princess phones needed the extra pair for the lighting voltage, but cannot figure this out.

Thanks,

Joe

The ones with four wires are likely wired for A leads, meaning that a contact is closed to short the black and yellow pair when the phone is off-hook. This is for when they are installed as single-line sets behind a 1A2 system.

The three wire ones are just standard sets. There was a time when party lines required the ringer to be wired separately (or differently), but since everything is bridged ringing now, the green and yellow leads are just connected together on terminal L1 of the connecting block.

Paul\'s Western Electric Telephone Site

Bookmark this site. It is the definitive historical reference for WE sets. You can spend an entire evening looking and learning. Enjoy!