The model 186 is Automatic Electric's multi-line business phone to match the Western Electric 555, but look how much bigger it is! The only possible reason for that would be that Automatic Electric used bigger, clunkier parts than Western Electric. An interesting feature of these phones is the light strip above the line buttons. Instead of lighting the buttons themselves, as Western Electric did, these phones had LEDs on the strip above the buttons that would come on or flash, indicating the status of each line. This unit has a sticker on the bottom from 1982, and it appears to be wall-mountable (!). The little box attached to the right side of the phone has a key lock on the back and so was probably used to restrict calling out. It was discarded by a business in Huntington Beach, California.
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