Odds & Ends of the
Bell System
Side 1 of a collector's coin produced by the Bell
System in its last days.
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Side 2 of the same coin. It
states,
"The Bell System as we have known it will exist
only in our memories and in the history books."
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Southern Bell Employee Service Pin, possibly from
the 1970's.
Photo contributed by Les Phillips, Atlanta, GA
Found in an old park in Michigan by Jim
Lewis
Back in the days when the Bell System was still around, there were many kids
that wanted to be a "Telephone Man" or "Operator" when they
grew up. The following three photos from eBay auctions are proof of this
widespread desire:
Bell System
Man Hole Lid |
Old tools used to
repair telephones |
Bell System Key
used to replace light
in phone booths |
Southwestern Bell glass globe. It is identical on both sides.
Courtesy of Pete D'Acosta
Photo of Bell lamp shade courtesy of Gary
Goff
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Photo of Bell lamp shade courtesy of Gary
Goff
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BLUE
BELL Paperweight Collection
Courtesy of R.
L. Jacobsen
A visitor to my website contributed this
photo above of what appears to be a
pitcher used in the cafeteria of a Bell Telephone company. It is 9 1/2
inches tall. Made by Mayer China. Click on the Bell logo in the middle of the
pitcher and see an enlarged view of the logo. A big thanks to Dan Allen
for the photo!
Bell Logo patch for applying to
clothing
such as uniforms of Bell employees.
Click on image above to enlarge.
This tie was bought at an estate sale and
belonged to Angus S. Alston former Chairman and Chief Executive of Southwestern
Bell Telephone Company and was on the board of directors of AT&T and Pepsico. -
Photo and description from eBay auction seller "tip-and-ring".
Photo 1
(click to enlarge) |
Bell System
Kettle
(click to enlarge)
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Photo 2
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We received these photos
of a Bell System kettle from a web site visitor, Robin Bodiford. Photo 1 shows the kettle on top of an old gas burner. The interesting piece is
the kettle, because on the bottom of
the kettle (Photo 2), it is marked "BELL SYSTEM." At first I
thought it was used to cook food when linemen were working in remote areas and
couldn't drive to a far-away town to eat. But some members of the ATCA and
TCI clubs informed me of the real use for them! Their comments follow:
It was used to melt lead and wipe
lead cable sheathing. Probably from the '50s. They
were commonly used to melt lead by plumbers to seal cast iron soil pipe
at least into the 1960s. - Steve Schlink - ATCA #1168, TCI
"Your "kettle" looks like a
lead pot to me. it was used for melting lead to use in soldering splice cases in
sewers (manholes) where no open flames could be used. The pot was heated by
propane above ground by the splicer's helper and then lowered down into the hole
where the splicer would use a ladle to pour the molten lead on the case and use
a wipe to put the lead where he wanted it. If I recall correctly this was called
the "pour and wipe" (naturally) method of sealing a splice case.
I could tell of one very scary
incident where I almost spilled a pot of molten solder in the face of
a splicer who just happened to look up as I was about to lower the pot and it
hit the manhole ring and I caught it just in time. I still shudder about that
incident." -
Robert H Evans - ATCA
The "kettle" was a lead
pot used to melt solder to "wipe" lead sleeves in the old days when
the Bell System used lead sheath cables. The furnace was used to melt the
solder. The cable splicer would place a lead sleeve over the splice, beat
the edges of the sleeve down so that it would fit snuggly around the cable then
use the heated solder to seal the opening between the sleeve and cable. He would
use a ladle to pour the melted solder into a catch pad that he held under the
sleeve and then wipe it smooth with a smaller pad. This procedure is a lot
easier to understand if you have done it, which I have but it has been about 35
years. - Bob Holland - ATCA #3222
And a website visitor
contributed his personal story on the kettle:
The " tea pot" shown at your
site is actually a pot used for boiling paraffin. Back in the "old days" the
lead cables had paper insulated conductors, in order to keep them waterproof in
case someone's "pot wipe" failed we would boil parafin and pour it in to the
splice before closing it. In order to get back into the splice later you would
have to boil the paraffin out by pouring more paraffin in and having a paraffin
tray beneath the splice to catch the drippings. You would then carefully spread
the pairs apart. I have "wiped" lead sleeves as recently as last year [2002].
There is still a lot in use in rural areas and on military bases. When I worked
in Alaska back in the 80's I used the "boil" method with jelly filled cable in
the winter except I would boil "orange juice" or jelly cable cleaning agent to
remove the frozen jelly. - Steve Hearon; Applied Quality Comm.
Inc.
An ex-Bell Canada employee named
Pierre adds:
"Both lead and paraffin were [used].
As a Cable Repair for more than 25 years I opened many lead splice wiped.
Technician used to stamp their employee number on them after wiping them.
And inside, all copper pairs were
covered with muslin and paraffin poured on it to prevent shiner (degradation
of the pulp covering the copper wires)"
Steve Hilsz contributed the
following photos of his Bell System natural gas burner used to heat the Bell
System kettle:
Ron Christianson contributed
this
photo of a Bell System tea pot.
eBay Item #3636071934 - Seller ID: danerf
Keychain stating, "The System is the Solution" -
ebay seller danerf
This is what the Bell System employees would
take when dealing with abusive customers!
Bell System and Post-Bell System Manhole Covers
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A thank you to Daniel Farkas from
Nutmeg Technologies for sending us these various manhole covers of the Bell
System and more recent ones.
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