TN finally arrived (West German Phone)

[LM Ericsson]

My TN phone arrived in the mail. It came in well packaged with no cracks or chips. I found on the condenser the date of the phone which said 9/59. The handset was severely discolored so I scrubbed it very well and the discoloration is not very noticeable anymore. If you shine an led flashlight to the bakelite, you can see hairline cracks on the surface on the bakelite, but they don't bother me.
The dial was not in very  good shape and needed some serious oiling which I did so it works perfectly now. There is one problem when dialing a 1. When I dial a 1 the pulse does not go through unless you force the dial slightly. It still needs some work but overall is a nice phone from west germany!

[bingster]

Very pretty phone.  And you can set your drink on top while you're phoning

[GG]

Nice.  That's a TeleNorm E2.  The E1 is a slightly smaller version of that, typically only found in black.  The E3 is the later version, identifiable by a more rectangular handset handle and a dial with a solid clear number card protector rather than the "sunburst"-style design with large hex nut. 

On the E2 you'll often find that the ivory hookswitch plungers can crack along the sides, so be careful with those parts.  Also as you see, the baseplate feet on those tend to melt and should be replaced with something high enough that the underside of the phone (particularly around the ringer mech) clears the desk.   Also that style of handset often develops hairline cracks down the handset handle, so it should be treated as fragile and stored in moderate temperatures. 

If your dial isn't working properly for digit 1, chances are the return spring needs to be tightened.  The mechanism for that is not the same as conventional German dials such as Siemens and DFG, I'll have to go take a look at one of mine if you're interested (darn, I should know this one, I can see the DFG mechanism in my mind's eye but I can't picture the TN version despite having a bunch of TN equipment around). 

The flat area on top was designed to take various "special services" buttons, using housings with appropriate holes molded into them and ivory plastic designation-strip retainers.  One common version has a large circular ground button above the rectangular number card slot (yours is missing the clear plastic insert which is also typical; easy to fabricate a replacement).   Another version was the typical German 2-line configuration whereby switching between lines automatically put the other line on hold unless you pressed its hold-release button to disconnect.  Another version was used with a key service unit for multiple lines. 

One version of the E3 was provided by PMG Australia as a key telephone system in configurations of (if I recall correctly) 1 CO + 5 extensions, and 2 CO + 10 extensions (I can go look that up if you're interested). 

Yet another was a speakerphone, in which the earpiece in the handset became the microphone for the hands-free function (I thought that was downright weird but nonetheless it existed and apparently worked well enough, though you 'd have to put the phone on the left side of your desk so the earpiece would pick up your voice well enough while on the cradle). 

Siemens made some small key systems phones in a similar configuration.