The Telephone Company (mostly Bell back then) convention of "Exchange" naming and the number of digits in a telephone number gets complicated, lost in history and depending on what population center the service area is in, had different timelines for conversion (upgrades).

For the younger readers here, an "Exchange" was a word in which the first two letters corresponded with the first two nukmbers of the telephone number. Within a neighborhood, all would have the same Exchange name, until all the remaining nukmbers were used up. Then a new Exchange name was created. Perhaps the most well known Exchange names are PEnnsylvania, as in a Glenn Miller song, "PEnnsylvania 6-5000" and BUtterfield, as in the Elizabeth Taylor movie, "BUtterfield-8".

For the Beverly Hills Country Club numbers on the matchbook covers shown in the Opening Post, "HIghland" is the Exchange name. The telephone number HI-1790, by Telephone Company jargon, is referred to as a: 2L-4N formatted number and the HI-11790 is a 2L-5N formatted number. 2L-4N numbers pre-date 2L-5N numbers, however, depending on where the Central Office of the Exchange(s) was loacted, there were some locations across the US that had an over-lap where both 2L-4N and 2L-5N formatted numbers worked at the same time.

My point here is that the conversion from 2L-4N to 2L-5N was different for many areas across the US (Canada as well) and a 2L-4N matchbook in one Exchange can be newer than a 2L-5N matchbook from a different Exchange.

There is some very interesting information about Exchange designations at this website: http://ourwebhome.com/TENP/TENproject.html

Well, perhaps interesting to those of us that remember using MUrray-xxxxx or KLondike-xxxxx, or ?

Warm regards,

Jim