Yes you have to put $$ limits on your collectables.....mine is $30 for hats. Otherwise I could have a very expensive habit. I managed to carry the €5 find thru 4 countries with only a backpack on my last trip to your Europe in 2018. I initially passed it up but after visiting Dublin Castle I couldn't stop thinking about it and found my way back to the charity shop to snatch up this french made beauty. Now if only Hastings Racetrack would open back up so I could wear it and see if it brings me a little luck with the horses.
Okay as mentioned a few posts back the next models I was going to show is the AE 4 (non dial) & 4A (dial) compact wall phones. BUT, they are still in the shop for some needed repairs before going through the photograph session. Too many diversions these days! So, lets divert briefly to “Retirement Gift Phones”.
Automatic Electric made gold finished telephone housings primarily for retirement gift telephones. I don’t know what the process is to make these but the housings are noticibly heavier than the normal plastic housings and they retain heat and cold more like metal compared to plastic.
I bought these two housings (only) on eBay maybe 10 years ago and then I put them onto existing AE 80E and AE182 Starlite phones. They made gold finished handsets as well but that wasn’t part of the auction so it is what it is. The final two pictures are of an actual AE retirement phone that I bid on in an online auction recently but the price went a little too crazy for me. You can see the retirement plaque attached to the front. The guy was an engineer for a US telephone company.
In the early days of Dial Telephones you dialled “0” for the “Operator” if you wanted to make a Long Distance Call. And of course Long Distance calls were expensive. People got in their mind that if the number they were dialling HAD a “0” in it it might turn out to be an expensive Long Distance call. This early telephone dial put people more at ease by having an 11th digit on the dial specifically for Long Distance. In reality choosing The Long Distance digit as opposed to the “0” did exactly the same thing, it dialled 10 pulses.
This Candlestick Desk telephone is worth $4000-$5000 US these days.
The Oak Wall phone version is more plentiful and much more affordable at $500-$800.
Both are called 1905 Strowgers and were made 1905-1910 give or take.
These arent mine... I wish! I do have one of the wooden wall phones that isn't in the same condition as this one is.
AE_Collector
It's actually @grumpy_neighbour (don't know why I can't tag him but we couldn't sign him in last month to enter the holiday contest either?!!) phone but he would love it if he could make it complete. His very long term but now former roommate would be keen to do it as he restores all kinds of vintage toys and bicycles.
@darlicious wrote:.....and then what happened?
Next models to be introduced? I have two versions of the next model, the AE 4 but they needed some work before pictures and are now in pieces on my work bench! I needed to get back to work on them, get pictures and do the next instalment here.
Yours @darlicious is an AE 40 introduced in 1939. In good condition it just needs a number card for the centre of the dial. Maybe I can find one to email you to print and I can talk you through installing it under the clear plastic centre window on the dial.
@AE_Collector wrote:Automatic Electric Model 2 - Desk and 3 Wall Monophones:
The #2 Desk Phone shown IS NOT a 1925 “Wireless Model”, I just need to actually add a cord to it one day!
LOL, yeah, you had us all fooled there - we totally thought you could walk around the house with the handset, yappin' away, in 1925! 😆
Automatic Electric Type 2 (Desk) and Type 3 (Wall) Monophones
After release of the new Type 1 & 1A Monophones, AE set about designing new models that would simplify the installation work by including all of the required parts in one housing eliminating the need for the subset. This led to the introduction of the Type 2 Desk Monophone and the similar Type 3 Wall Monophone in 1926. The desk phone is made primarily from molded Bakelite that AE had just begun to use more extensively in phone manufacturing. The new wall phone is made primarily from Steel except for the Bakelite handset.
The look of the new Type 2 Desk Phone virtually seems to be the Bakelite Subset box used in conjunction with the Type 1A Desk Phone both moulded into a new combined Desk Telephone. With all of the components inside the desk housing, for the first time a subset was not required to house the rest of the telephone.
The Type 3 Wall Phone shown has a Dial Blank so this one was used in a manual exchange where you took the handset off the hook and waited for the operator to come on the line and ask who you wanted to be connected with. A dial would be installed when the exchange was being readied for conversion to automatic dial service.
The Type 2 Desk Phone shown IS NOT a 1925 “Wireless Model”, I just need to actually add a handset cord to it one day!
Automatic Electric Model 1 and 1A Desk Monophones
(Edited to update the Type 1 pictures FROM the Type 5 previously posted)
The AE Type 1 Monophone was introduced in 1925 and was slightly redesigned in 1926 as the AE - 1A Monophone with a lower cradle height. These new models could be ordered with a Dial or with a “Dial Blank”. Telephone Exchanges that provided manual service (operators at cord boards) were the norm in 1925-1926 when these models were launched by Automatic Electric. Simply going off hook would get the operators attention and she would plug in and ask you who you wished to be connected with. The model 1A if equipped with a blank dial plate allowed installers to easily convert the phone in the field to a dial phone in the weeks before dial service would be inaugurated in a community.
These models were effectively the first phones in North America with what we recognize as “Handsets”.... both the Transmitter & Receiver attached to a convenient handle as opposed to the then common practice of having the transmitter attached to the front of the phone and the receiver attached by a flexible cord so it could be held up to your ear. Automatic Electric named this new Transmitter and Receiver unit a “Monophone” and this name stuck to all of their newer phone models into the early 1960’s.
Both of these models required a “Subset” which is a separate box usually attached to a wall or desk with the phone wired to it. The Subset has the ringer inside as well as other network components that balance the line so that both people can hear each other properly.
