It will come as no surprise to those of you who are aware of my telecoms background that I have quite a few old phones around the house!

I grew up in England with the GPO 700-series, which was the nearest British equivalent of the Western Electric 500. I also have some older WE-500 phones, the pre-modular types and a Princess rotary-dial model.

On the lovely sound of the old bells, some frineds of mine nearby have just been remodeling their home and I've just supplied them with an ex-Bell System 500 set in yellow for their living room.

Apparently it made for quite a conversation piece when some relatives visited them recently. [Linked Image] They love the sound of the ring (more pleasant-sounding than that of the old British 700 phones), although it made one of the kids jump when it rang right next to him! I guess he'd never heard anything but the modern chirp-chrip phone either.