Outlawmws
Well-known member
Two Bell System's from yesterday - Anyone have a clue who made the metal polish? you are looking at the only markings on the can:
Driver is Stanley wood handle
Driver is Stanley wood handle
Bell system
- Thread starter Shelbylex
- Start date
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
You might get lucky poking around inside the telcom archives. Or searching the indexes on "polish." Link in post #1. I remember seeing something about polish in one of my forays, but I believe it was furniture, not metal.
Nice find!
Almost martial or generic in its paucity, which is par for the course for them.
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
How old do you think that can is and how much reading time do you want to spend on this?
Breaking into my best NJ mafia accent..., "Let me make you an offer you can't refuse."
I present a 1972 Congressional Hearing on Organized Crime that I just found on Google Books searching the term "Bell System Liquid Metal Polish" linked HERE. It provides a brief history of Bell's metal polishing requirements (phone booths and equipment sent back for repair!), spends a lot of time discussing "KS-19432", their specification for a solution they developed and tested internally, in their labs, in 1962, and then contracted out to Magnolia Chemical Company, Dallas, TX, for production, before ABRUPTLY switching to a commercial solution in 1964, called "Poly-Clean", distributed by All-Purpose Chemical Company, East Orange, NJ (of course!), chief sales agent Rocco Mazza, made by GNR Corp., Palmer, Mass.
All-Purpose and its methods of merchandising Poly-Clean to supermarkets, school districts, government facilities, and Bell are the subject of the hearing!
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Outlawmws
Well-known member
No clue as to age, but this was a place that was clearly a "been there forever" home, and way older part of town. I was told they hauled Four 20 yard dumpsters out before the sale!
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
I don't know what, if anything, they were using to clean phone booths prior to 1962. But I would say the chances are pretty good that's either their homegrown solution or the mafia's!
Miss the Pontiacs
Well-known member
Was trying to taper off buying anymore phones online. But since I’m not overly disciplined, so oops I did it again.
This one a little more compact was similar to one installed in our newly built farm house around 60 years ago. My Mom had the local rural man (Wilf) install it in a closet between the kitchen and living room. The closet had sliding doors and was referred to as the phone booth. I sent a pic (phone) of it to a buddy(rural man’s youngest son) who was Wilf that installed it originally.
Cool story was that Wilf and a few other local guys actually owned the rural telephone company. My guess once it was expanding the province bought them out and they did well financially. Wilf had the local exchange right in their family home where his Wife Alice managed the equipment and operators.
This one a little more compact was similar to one installed in our newly built farm house around 60 years ago. My Mom had the local rural man (Wilf) install it in a closet between the kitchen and living room. The closet had sliding doors and was referred to as the phone booth. I sent a pic (phone) of it to a buddy(rural man’s youngest son) who was Wilf that installed it originally.
Cool story was that Wilf and a few other local guys actually owned the rural telephone company. My guess once it was expanding the province bought them out and they did well financially. Wilf had the local exchange right in their family home where his Wife Alice managed the equipment and operators.
Private Lugnutz
Well-known member
That's the cutest family idiosyncracy story I've heard in a long time.
RTM
Well-known member
here is a pickup from a few weeks back, (just noticed it was post #2000 in this years' thread) finally had time to sort them out. This was a tough one: where to post>? M. Klein, Pliers or Bell Systems. This thread won.
A pair of wire nippers, with the stripping notches cut in the jaws. Code marked Delta NML, so Q1 1963, not quite older than I am, but close enough to still be quality. Being new to figuring out ages on Klein tools, I first read the code as AMNL, and that didn't go far
. But popping into the M. Klein thread got me through
A pair of wire nippers, with the stripping notches cut in the jaws. Code marked Delta NML, so Q1 1963, not quite older than I am, but close enough to still be quality. Being new to figuring out ages on Klein tools, I first read the code as AMNL, and that didn't go far
. But popping into the M. Klein thread got me throughGarageHobbyist
Well-known member
Kind of a neat Bell Related find today. General Telephone and Electronics trucker hat. They were independent and purchasing other telco companies until Bell Atlantic acquired them in 2000.
