Hat on Top, Coat Below
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Back When There Were More Colors
December 11, 2025
The Facebook algorithm served me up this Western Electric color chart the other day. Ah, color. (No purples, but still.) I’m sure not every phone came in every color. Nonetheless, the large number of colors is impressive: 36 (only 7, or about one fifth, of them black, grey, white, or clear). Compare to the latest iPhones, where there are 9 colors total, 3 of them black, grey, or white (so one-third boring).
In trying to track down what year this chart is from, I came across a charmingly old school website with a page on Western Electric color codes. Alas, the links to color charts there now redirect to somewhere else, though there is a page with some great colorful ads, including one with swirled colors of phones.
Poking around the ‘net some more, I found a post on a rotary phone message board (love it; hope these folks haven’t gone to Discord where this sort of stuff gets hidden) that had the full catalog page of the color chart with “6/83” in the corner, so maybe that means it’s from 1983. It also had another page, with the same date notation, but fewer colors (23, 7 black/grey/white/clear, so almost one-third, but with more total choices, less boring than today’s iPhone).
Speaking of not boring, I fondly remember the Sears Colormates stuff from the mid-70s (pretty sure we still have some brown twin sheets around from that era). I haven’t been able to find a color chart for those, but did come across this ad (yes, that is a lot of brown):
Some of the color names I found poking around catalog pages online: Indian Brown, Royal Blue, Indian Peach, Winter White, Jungle Green, Emerald Green, Grape Sherbet, Avocado Lime, Avocado Leaf, Autumn Wheat, Camel, Autumn Orange, Royal Blue/Royal Navy, Aztec Gold, Tawny Gold, Lemon Yellow, Strawberry Pink, Fiesta Red.
Color hasn’t disappeared, of course, but with the color of 2026 being white, it’s receded, and that makes me a bit sad.
On this date in 2024: No journal entry
2023: A Week in Photos: 2023, Part 49
2022: Searching for Signal.
2021: I’m the Pilot Now
2020: It’s Mando Day
2019: A Lot Like Christmas
2018: The Very Rich Are Different from Me
2017: Not Quite a Family Heirloom
2016: ‘Tis the Season for Dental Work
2015: And I Would Drive 716 Miles
2014: This Is My Brain on Stress
2013: No entry
2012: What’s Up Mushroom?
2011: Grey on Top, Brown Below
2010: No entry
2009: My Secret Self—Not
2008: Any Time Now
2007: WDW, Part Deux
2006: Inside the Numbers
2005: Sunday Stress
2003 & 2004: No entries
2002: I Can See Clearly Now
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One Comment Leave a Comment
December 11th, 2025 at 6:55 pm
Those phone colors remind me of my high school boyfriend, who collected telephones. Though I am fairly sure he went more for interesting shapes (cars, boats, various animals) than just different colors.