Stromberg-Carlson Model 1243I just love bargains. Not the junk that’s “cheap for a reason”, but genuinely good prices on good stuff. I’ve already carried on in another post about how to find bargains on eBay, but I left out one thing: “Buy It Now”. The best bargains I’ve ever gotten on eBay have come from seeing a Buy It Now just moments after it listed. Such was the case with this dandy Stromberg-Carlson 1243. The Buy It Now was $10 and so was the shipping… sold! So what did my $20 get me? A pretty decent phone, actually. The alloy body is missing paint in the usual places, but the bakelite handset is free from damage (although the receiver cap is pretty pitted), the dial turns and returns as it should, and all the internals are present. I can’t comment on functionality yet, as I’ve yet to replace the well-worn line cord.
My first Stromberg-Carlson. I’ve gotten a fair amount of experience with 302’s, and even North Electric Galion’s, but this one seems different. I know next to nothing about S-C, except that they were owned by General Dynamics for a few years, Stromberg-Carlson 1243the company my father put in close to forty years with. And to think, I thought all they made were bombers and fighter planes! The 1243 is sometimes dismissed as a 302 clone, but it’s nothing of the sort. There are visual similarities to be sure, as they didn’t want to stray too far from the Bell “look”. The public perception of the Bell System was one of quality, and the independents felt, rightly so, that too great a deviation in looks could be perceived negatively. But Stromberg-Carlson kept a distinctive style, “chopping off” the corners and sculpting a handset that transforms the phone into something almost art-nouveau in appearance.
I’ll need to break down the phone further before I can detail this feature, but the bottom has a cool-looking plastic window, vaguely like the canopy of a WWII fighter. (I’ve just found the attraction General Dynamics had for the company!) I’m not sure I get the significance of this plastic bubble, but it is certainly a unique feature. Stromberg-Carlson 1243 Wiring DiagramAlthough I’m baffled as to the purpose it could serve, I doubt it would be there without a good reason. Could it be that I wasn’t meant to understand? The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that it represents one of those technology jumps that could only have been achieved via extraterrestrial intervention. Just a theory. Popping the top on a 1243 reveals a very modern-looking network and, what’s this… something that looks like an ancient parchment clipped along side it. With the utmost care, like an Egyptologist handling ancient papyrus, I remove the delicate browned paper. It’s a wiring diagram. (scanned and available here in two sizes, large and huge) This is great, the phone came with a road map! I may not know where I’m going, but now I know how to get there.