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Model 500 TelephoneThe Western Electric Model 500 telephone was the standard desk-style telephone set used by AT&T (the Bell System) in North America from the late 1940s through the divestiture of AT&T in 1984. Many millions of Model 500 phones were produced and were once a familiar sight in almost every home in America; huge numbers are still in use today thanks to their unparalleled durability and to their cheap prices and ample availability on the secondhand market. The basic phone's modular construction not only made manufacture and repair simple, but also made possible a large number of variants and derivatives with different details and features. A touch-tone variant, the Model 2500, first introduced in the 1960s, is still in production today by several manufacturers. The original Model 500 was designed by Henry Dreyfuss Associates, the product of several years of research and testing, and introduced in 1949. The original version was available only in black and had a rotary dial with a black-painted metal fingerwheel (black remained the most popular color throughout the model's production, and the Model 500 has been affectionately nicknamed by some as "the black phone"). Within a few years the Model 500 began to be made in a variety of colors, and the metal fingerwheel was replaced with a clear plastic wheel. The 500 was also the first phone to use the "G"-style handset, which remains familiar as the standard handset on public payphones. Telephones derived from the basic Model 500, using some if not most of the same components, included the Model 554 wall-mounted phone and the 1500 and 2500 touch-tone phones. In the early 1950s, a strange hybrid called the Model 5302 appeared, using the internal components of Western Electric's earlier Model 302 phone enclosed in an exterior housing similar in appearance to the then-new Model 500. Like all telephones of the time, Model 500 phones were owned by local telephone companies--all of which were in turn owned by AT&T, which also owned Western Electric itself--and leased on a monthly basis by customers. Many 500s made by Western Electric thus carried the following disclaimer permanently molded into their housings: "BELL SYSTEM PROPERTY--NOT FOR SALE." Around the time of the AT&T divestiture, 500-style phones were also made under license for outright purchase by ITT. Because the telephone company owned the telephones and were responsible for keeping them in good repair, the Model 500 was designed to be extremely rugged, reliable, and easy to repair, to last for decades. The 1940s-era technology of the 500 makes extensive use of solid metal components and point-to-point wiring, and most components are simple to remove and replace.
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