What is the gauge of older, circa 1969, CAT3 50 pair telephone cable?

from my days as a phone guy the larger pair cables come in 0.4 mm and 0.64 mm which are either side of the size we normally see for data cables.

Normally the splices will handle the change from one to the other so ...should not be a problem electrically.
If you Running data (hi speed) thru that cable you may get a echo-y spot there due to the unraveling of the wires and maybe size change. (and twist change?)
Normally you can't/shouldn't splice data cables anyhow (but I have done it before when forced to) but a good splice is no more disruptive than a plug and socket when one thinks about it  and some (most) places have 4 x rj45 connections in each run.

The difference in cat3 - cat5  - cat6 etc is more in the wire twisting of the pairs  (virtual co-axial cable due to the different twist rate doing noise canceling)
Cat 3 has a looser twist than the higher cat cables. so the twisting of the pairs is more important than the wire gauge. (phone wires are looser than Cat 3 so are not cat at all)
at a certain frequency (not actually that high) the wires start acting more like a wave guide than a conductor, the electricity/signal starts to run on the outside of the wires (skin effect) not thru them due to inductance/resistance, weird but true!

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