Irene Hieber
]]>Your collection sounds neat. I also collect old phones, including a working model from the early 1940s which I love. Heavy thing. At one point I had about seven wired in sequence on top of the piano, so when a call came in, they rang ALL AT ONCE! You could hear them from quite a distance! Good times.
]]>Finally, a subject I know something about. By 1890, Gillett’s transmitter had been completely displaced by Thomas Edison’s carbon transmitter, which is even capable of amplification. The carbon transmitter was used for a hundred years before being replaced by dynamic and electret mics in electronic phones. The phones at my house are mostly Western Electric sets from the 1960s, and have carbon transmitters.
On a related subject, I was at Hathaway’s a couple weeks ago and was distressed to find that the telephones were missing. I hope they are just out for repair and not gone forever. Those phones are probably 100 years old, and are battery powered with hand crank ringer magnetos.
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