I saw this today in an antique store in Asheboro, NC (North Carolina).

1970’s “Design Line” phone called the Celebrity.

A fine-looking piece of Bell Telephone equipment if you wanted to pay extra to not have the standard models. Very well made. Made by Western Electric. They made the good stuff.

I could always tell a Western Electric phone just by picking it up and holding it. To me, GTE and Automatic Electric were phonies, though I’d like to have a few now. North State in High Point always had that off-brand stuff. Southern Bell in Greensboro had the models I liked the best.

Appearance wise, I usually like dial model phones better than the later touch-tone ones. Like the Celebrity, the dial versions of the Trimline and Princess phones are especially beautiful.

If you wanted to do phone phreaking, touch-tone was the way to go. Ha! So I’m told.

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SERIAL #f541925
THE TELEPHONE HOUSING IS YOUR PROPERTY. TO ASSURE QUALITY OF SERVICE, ALL WORKING PARTS, e.g. DIAL, CORDS, AND ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS REMAIN THE PROPERTY AND RESPONSIBILITY OF THE BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY
Western Electric

COMPLIES WITH PT 68, FCC RULES FCC REG. NO. AS593M-70260-TE-R RINGER EQUIVALENCE 1.0A