That black box on the table is a telephone.

[Frank D.]

Guys:
Reading the "$18,000 Car" thread (concerning "showing our age") currently on the discussion board, it reminded me of something that happened last summer. I drove my 1968 Cutlass down to Raleigh, for a car show. I picked up one of my nephews there and he rode with me to the fairgrounds. On the way he kept staring at the door panel. At a stoplight, I asked him what he was looking at. His answer was, "It's getting warm and I wanted to put the window down but I can't find the switch." I pointed to the window crank and after pressing on the plastic knob and turning it back and forth a couple of times he said to me, "The button's broken can you put it down from your side?"

Frank

[Tom P.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

And they all work.





Cradle phones (above) and candle stick phones (below) required a seperate ringer box which had the bells, transmitting coil, etc, inside and was usually hard mounted to the wall below wherever the phone was located. MOST homes only had one phone. You were really special if your home had two phones.

[Terry M.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

Very nice collection Tom. I live in the town next to where the Western Electric plant was located, and the town has a very nice museum in the Community College displaying some of the products that were made at that plant.

http://www.morton.edu/museum/index.html

[Reba W.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

I remember all those cool colors in the '60s.

[Terry M.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

For a slide show of the images of the Hawthorn Works Museum and some of the collection click on the images to the right inthe link I provided above.

[Pat M.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

Cool phones, Tom. I'd never seen one configured exactly like this one.

[Mike G.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

and you have some analog saws to match the phone collection.

[Tom P.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

I don't know what was the most common use for this type of phone, but I frequently saw them in use in auto parts stores and businesses with a counter. This one is at one end of my workbench in the garage.
You can see it here. Sure comes in handy with the loooooooooong cord for the handset.

[Terry M.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

The electric utility I work for has/had that type of phone in many of the substations built pre-WW II. They were located beside the control panels so that one could operate the equipment while communicating with the dispatcher. I haven't been in those places in several decades, but they worked fine when I was last there. Given the use of cell phones and computer controls now, I suspect those compact phones are all now in the hands of collectors.

[Paul J.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

Radio Shack sold reconditioned cradle phones in the 70's. They were really just cleaned up, not reconditioned since the heavy windings never wore out. I have it somewhere with an old four prong connector on it.

[Michael W.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

Tom,

I have no idea what those back boxes are for other than maybe some weird bath and shower attachments from the 50s, but I sure dig the antique TV in the picture below. I remember those- that's from the days when the cabinets were as deep as the screen was wide. My grandmother told me in the old days you had to get off the couch to change the channel, but she already had a few hits from the sherry bottle on the sideboard, so who knows.

And they all work.

[Tom P.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

I remember when there was no TV, and you STILL had to get off of the couch to change the radio station.
And the ONLY way to get someone's number or a business's number was to look it up in the phone book (which I still do sometimes). And to make ANY long distance call, you had to dial the Operator.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I wonder what would happen now if I dialed (or touched) the 0?

[Philip C.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

Tom I have the same phone in my shop (as in post 6) do you have the big bell box for it? the best part is, it still rings and works, can be a pain when you have to "press" for an extension. Phil 8063

[Henry F.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

And there was a time you shared a phone line with someone down the road, remember the "one" and "two" rings!

[Tom P.]

Re: That black box on the table is a telephone.

Tom I have the same phone in my shop (as in post 6) do you have the big bell box for it? the best part is, it still rings and works, can be a pain when you have to "press" for an extension. Phil 8063

Yes, it's on the shelf just above the phone. Several of my phones have the ringer box as it was called.
When present house was built, I had it wired with many telephone outlets in the walls because I knew we would have several of our antique phones connected. I think we have 21 phones hooked up and working.