North Electric GalionsYou know, eBay is a funny place. You search for, say, “bakelite telephone”, with no real intention of bidding. It is, after all, great fun just to see what’s out there, right? That’s how this got started. I spotted an auction for four (four) North Electric “Galion” telephones, and they weren’t seeing much action. Now I didn’t need four Galions, but gosh-darn-it, it would be a shame to let a bargain slip right through my fingers!The seller’s description seemed to answer most of the obvious questions, and had added that one phone had cracks along the front corners. They were clearly filthy, and as the seller mentioned, all needed new cords. It was obvious that no one had done a thing with the phones for many years, which sometimes is a good thing. So I cautiously placed a bid, and before I knew it I was the proud owner at $22 per phone. (including shipping) I was pretty pleased, and even more-so when they arrived just three days later… I just love sellers that ship promptly! I’ve yet to explore the innards of these beauties, but from the outside they appear just as I expected, complete with really bad cords, AE dials, and years of dirt. With the exception of the one with cracked corners, all the bakelite bodies looked fine, as did the handsets.
I’m looking forward to getting into them and seeing exactly what I have. I don’t even know at this point whether they’ve got straight-line ringers or not. My guess is that they’re frequency ringers, in which case I’ll have to decide whether to maintain originality or replace them with something that works. One thing I do know is that each phone has an interesting frosted white light on the right side. Presumably all four phones came from a doctor’s office, and the lights could have served a special need in that environment. I don’t know what I’m going to do with these things, Christmas presents maybe, but I’m going to enjoy fixing them and making them look nice again. I wonder if I can get them to look like the Galion shown in my May 9th post? Meet me back here later for the “after” photos!