700 Type Telephone

Red 706
The classic 700 type phone, with curly cord, plastic dial and carrying bar under handset rest, letters and numbers on outer dial ring.
Jersey 706
Some early 706s were supplied with metal dials and grey braided cords (the colour being known as grebe). This example was one of an unissued batch supplied for trial but never adopted. Note the exchange names on the outer dial ring.
Two tone green 706
700s were available in a wide range of colours and one of the best in my view is the two tone green. The carrying bar is chrome plated metal instead of the plastic used earlier.
Due to severe fading, the dial ring is a modern repro, but the finger holes are not rounded enough for the 700 type.
Ivory 706
Modern plastic phones tend to discolour with exposure to light and with 700s, the dial and outer dial ring often degraded to a different colour from the main body.
Tele 710
The 700 series was developed to support a wide range of extension plans, for which the 710 model with space for 4 buttons instead of one was often used. This phone also shows how the two tone brown & grey gradually became the standard for office supply instead of the traditional black. Indeed, the outer dial ring would often be in brown too. Like many later 700s, the dial is now clear, as adopted in the later 746 model.
Plessey Office Set
This phone was equipped for DTMF tone dialling, but most phones of this sort used the later 746 body shape, whereas this is clearly based on the original 706 shape.

Introduced in 1959, the initial 700 type telephone used the 300 Type body with a new handset and transmission circuit. However, this was a stopgap until a new plastic body could be developed. The design for the new 706 body is generally considered to stem from the American Bell 500 telephone, but the Automatic Electric AE80 of 1954, see below, is actually much closer in style.

AE80

The use of plastic meant that a greater range of colours could be used. The new transmission circuit featured a regulator which adapted the gain to compensate for line length, as the more sensitive earpiece would otherwise have produced excessive loudness on short lines. Another innovation was the now universal curly cord.

Red 706

Jersey 706

Two tone green 706

Ivory 706

Tele 710

Plessey Office Set