Polish RWT/Telkom phones in the US

[addiator]

Hello. I have seen it mentioned in some threads about RWT telephones, that some were exported into the United States. There are also a few pictures of such phones, with American alphanumeric dials on this forum. I find this all very intriguing, as I had no idea that our phones were sold on the other side of the iron curtain back in the day. The question I have, is who imported them? After all, in the American system, phones were mostly owned by telephone companies, and not sold to customers individually. Was the import done on behalf of small, independent companies or were those phones actually sold in retail maybe? I cannot imagine any of the big players who had their own manufacturing arms would be interested in them.

[rdelius]

Mine wass imported to the US. Has Std US alphabet and FCC approval markings. Another market would have been  Private systems such as schools and  hospitals I have a couple of Pionier U100? radio sets from Poland but missing the back and knobs

[addiator]

rdelius, interesting you should mention Pionier U. Were you aware of the existance of this?  
Those were build by a small cooperative in the 50's using the Pionier chassis and RWT parts to make a loudspeaker phone. Fairly rare.

[rdelius]

Was not aware of the set.One way to reduce costs, The 4 tube circuit in the Pionier set was  rare in the west. Mbe were most likly to by Tesla in Czechslovika  which built telephones also