1941 Western Electric 302 Demo

Posted by  in Sunday, February 14th 2010   
Topics: Pro Audio    
Patriot1776 asked:


The oldest phone in my collection, a 1941-manufacture Western Electric 302. One thing I forgot to mention in vid is that this phone has a VERY HEAVY metal body!

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25 Comments

2140stephen said in February 17th, 2010 at 1:23 am    

hello, cool videos on old phones..I have an old western electric 302, what wires do i jump to get it to ring in,,it works all the way around but the ringing in..thanks

matkovicha said in February 20th, 2010 at 3:15 am    

Get all the wires away from the gongs.

hakemon said in February 23rd, 2010 at 8:54 am    

I love my model 500. But it has the coiled handset cord, and is a 73 model.

I have restored it for the most part as someone in the past totally butchered the wiring.

However, I want the cloth handset cord. Where did you get it?

daewooparts said in February 23rd, 2010 at 9:52 am    

its 67 years old and still works way better & sounds better then todays chinese made **** cordless phones

Patriot1776 said in February 24th, 2010 at 9:04 pm    

I don’t have any problem with them. I like them quite a bit as well. I have a couple of these older repro-candlesticks. I think I do need to do a couple videos on them. One of them is a Deco-Tel just like yours, but the other one is a more faithful one that is all metal except for the mouthpiece and the hung receiver and I believe has a Automatic Electric-style dial on it.

Adrelle177 said in February 28th, 2010 at 12:50 am    

I am so happy to see someone as passionate about vintage phones as I am. Question Patriot: What do you think about reproductions–not the ones that are being done today but the ones from a few decades ago. For example, in the 70′s candlestick phones were reproduced and I just purchased a french rotary dial from 1975-they originated much earlier. The model I just purchased is an “AMERICAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION”. DELCO-TEL. MODEL #D-B1330B. Let me know your thoughts.

Patriot1776 said in March 1st, 2010 at 8:39 am    

Check to make sure first, when you close the casing back up, that nothing is binding on the clapper between the ringer bells. I doubt that’s happening however, as that would also cause the ringer to not even ring at all. If the ringing just sounds muffled when the phone is closed up, then there’s nothing you can really do. Remember the age these things were designed in and the limited technical capability.

moneyman1934 said in March 2nd, 2010 at 11:00 am    

Hello again! I had another question about my 302 phone. When I did a few ringing tests on it, I noticed something strange. I called my house with the phone opened up so I could see the ringer, and the sound was just BEAUTIFUL, but when I put the casing back on and called it again, the ring was completely different and kind of ugly sounding. What do you think may cause that?

tell302man said in March 2nd, 2010 at 3:16 pm    

Are you a collector of phones? I have hundred of ould phones. Check out my videos if interested…..Those are just a few of my candlesticks.

Patriot1776 said in March 5th, 2010 at 4:30 pm    

First off, are you hearing any grinding noises to go along with it, like gears grinding or anything? And does the dial appear to be turning more slowly when that happens than it does when it doesn’t happen? If neither of these are true, it shouldn’t be anything to worry about, and I would instead just open the phone up and lube the dial with SEWING MACHINE oil.

moneyman1934 said in March 8th, 2010 at 1:32 pm    

VERY NICE PHONE! I have one too, but it was made in 1939. Also, I was wondering if you could help me with something. Occasionally when I go to dial a number, the dial will make this very strange sound when returning to its normal position; instead of lightly clicking like your phone’s dial, it is this very loud clanking. The phone still makes calls just fine, but do you know what the problem might be?

Patriot1776 said in March 9th, 2010 at 11:02 am    

That’s okay. I didn’t think your comment was offensive anyway.

Ludwag511 said in March 10th, 2010 at 7:31 pm    

I’m so sorry. I just learned that you were a cancer survivor. I meant no offense by the way. I didn’t mean anything bad.

cycloneCJproducts said in March 11th, 2010 at 7:49 am    

Nice job!!! I wanna go find an old phone!!! now…

cycloneCJproducts said in March 11th, 2010 at 8:50 pm    

every book has a story!!!

kornbelt said in March 14th, 2010 at 1:52 pm    

Very interesting

Ludwag511 said in March 15th, 2010 at 12:52 am    

You look very odd.

coffeehigh420 said in March 17th, 2010 at 6:19 pm    

i love this video. thanks for making it !!

northerbrewer said in March 20th, 2010 at 3:09 am    

Thanks for the clip.

I found a pile of parts at work for Norhtern Electric 302s. You have inspired me to try and build a working one

Patriot1776 said in March 20th, 2010 at 4:24 am    

Thanks much for the info. The 5302 was made then I’m guessing well into the 60′s?

mediawatchonhunger said in March 20th, 2010 at 9:20 am    

The 302 was made from 1937 to 1941 as a metal cased phone and the after the war it was made in thermo plastic until 1954 NOT 1951

WE302AE said in March 23rd, 2010 at 3:49 pm    

Great video.!!…what number did you dial to make the phone ring by itself…that was very clever…I have one of these 302′s that won’t ring…this would be a good way to test it after I play with the wiring, looking at a wiring schematic…Looking forward to your reply…You should do more antique telephone videos..
Thanks, Scott

jefferyb304 said in March 25th, 2010 at 9:24 am    

I found a transition telephone on eBay item no. 190218159504.

Patriot1776 said in March 27th, 2010 at 10:22 pm    

chad, the only real physical thing I had to do it to hook it up to today’s modular jacks was was attach a biscuit block jack onto the end of the base cord so I could then plug modern line cords into it to run to a modern wall jack.

Patriot1776 said in March 29th, 2010 at 11:12 am    

I didn’t have to really do anything to get it to work on modern lines, as today’s POTS/voice analog phone service is not any different now electrically then it was in the 1920′s when rotary/pulse dial service was introduced. All that’s changed is better equipment. I mainly did some VERY slight rewiring to wire it for bridged ringing instead of party-line ringing.

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