I was cruising Ebay a couple days ago, and noticed a BIN for 2 candlestick telephones. The listing was fairly new, but the phones had 3 watchers already so I wasn't the first to see them. They were $19 each plus shipping. I quickly purchased and paid for them and marveled at my luck. 10 minutes later, the sale was cancelled and my money was refunded. Later in the day I was able to get ahold of the Seller, who told me that there was a mistake in the listing. I begged them to sell them to me anyway at a higher price, so the next day they re-listed them for $49 each plus shipping. Again I quickly bought and paid and hoped the seller didn't cancel the sale again. The phones arrived today, and I haven't even taken the time to clean them. Here are pictures of the first one. Marked 50 AL, mounted on a wood base. This does not appear to be a homemade base, although I have never seen a wood base before. The receiver is interesting also. The cap has the profile of a long pole, not the cap I'm used to seeing on this style receiver. The cap is marked Property of American Bell Telephone on the sides. I tried the cap on three of my long poles, and it was two large for two of them, but fit the third. The Long Pole it fit I didn't believe was an American Bell receiver. Anyone have any ideas about the wood base?
Here's the 2nd candlestick. Under all that dirt it's marked 20-B, very nice 143 receiver, 7 digit transmitter and a wood bottom. I'm having trouble getting one of the screws off, so I will post pictures of the insides later. Despite all the dirt, it looks like it will clean up nicely. The wood boxes don't look like much, and I'm not sure if I will put them on ebay or just toss them. I must say this was a pretty nice score.
So it was a 7-digit after all! Does the 20-B have the cast metal stem bolt under the baseplate??? Take the OST and put it on the 20-B and the 143 AW receiver on the black phone and you'll have one fantastic candlestick and one ...something else.
That lug/cup arrangement is odd. Usually you will have a solid lug with the hole for the transmitter cord. If you open up the transmitter post some pics.
The lug is not correct - any idea what phone it should be on? The knurled nut is not in good shape - look like someone beat on it a little bit. I had a couple of those w.e. lugs, but sold them a while back unfortunately.
Quote from: wds on December 10, 2014, 06:23:40 PM
I was cruising Ebay a couple days ago, and noticed a BIN for 2 candlestick telephones. The listing was fairly new, but the phones had 3 watchers already so I wasn't the first to see them. They were $19 each plus shipping. I quickly purchased and paid for them and marveled at my luck. 10 minutes later, the sale was cancelled and my money was refunded. Later in the day I was able to get ahold of the Seller, who told me that there was a mistake in the listing. I begged them to sell them to me anyway at a higher price, so the next day they re-listed them for $49 each plus shipping.
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Hmmm, something fishy about that. I smell Mr. Helpful sticking his nose into things.
Your phone looks like it belonged to a really small independent and was constructed from parts of older phones. The wooden base is off of a TYPE 22 side screw type phone, and the 7-digit transmitter probably did as well. Is there any mark on the perch? The cup is probably off of a wall phone bracket such as a #10. Those subsets look like someone made them, probably the same guy who did the base.
Looks like the normal stem bolt. not sure about the wood bottom, but it sure did clean up nice.
That wooden base looks home-made. The WE version would have a steel top.