Here are a couple of the old telephones from my collection.  I don't know why I find them interesting, unless it's because this invention changed the world in a dramatic and irreversable way.  As AT&T's 1910 annual report put it, "[Telephones are] annihiliating time or distance by use of electrical transmission."  Old telephones are also (usually) well designed, with higher-quality construction and better ergonomics than many modern communication devices.   They're also less expensive to collect than old cars!  Check out the photos below (more to come) and be sure to surf to these awesome links.

Above:  Stromberg-Carlson "candlestick" telephone, with a Kellogg ringer box, ca. 1910(?)  Telephones at this time did not have dialers.   You just cranked the handle to ring the local central office, and asked the operator to connect you to a number.   Incoming calls would ring the bells on your ringer box, and you would answer with the handset.

Here's the inside of the ringer box (oak with solid brass bells).  Note the hand-cranked 4-bar magneto which rings the bells,  and was designed to provide the power to signal the local central station.  It looks like everything  is intact....

Above, the STC rotary deskset that was issued to me by Telecom Australia when I moved into my new place in Sydney, 1990.  Push button phones were also available at that time, because I got one of those too, soon after.

Above, the venerable 500, this one made by ITT/Cortelco (still new in the box).   To see how the 500 was created by well-known industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss, click here.

Do you enjoy collecting old telphones?  Know a good place for restoring old phones?  Send me an email at dcrilley@pacbell.net!

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