Can anyone translate this label on my candlestick telephone?
Quote from: wds on September 05, 2017, 08:32:35 PM
Can anyone translate this label on my candlestick telephone?
I am told that these are "Traditional Chinese" characters.
Many Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century to the US preferred them, before simplified characters were adopted or standardized.
Modern learners of Chinese can't read them, as is the case for my source.
I've tried the google translator for Japanese and Chinese and neither one yielded any valid responses.
I found a Japanese telephone collector website. Of course it is in Japanese biut maybe you can use google translator to send a message??
http://www.naonao.jp/
My smartphone set to chinese mode comes up with "Tokyo" and "Meeting of the group of people with gas", which kind of seems a bit odd if that's right........ ;D
Quote from: twocvbloke on September 06, 2017, 09:52:27 AM
My smartphone set to chinese mode comes up with "Tokyo" and "Meeting of the group of people with gas", which kind of seems a bit odd if that's right........ ;D
That is one meeting that I would NOT want to attend ;)
Larry
thanks for the link. I sent them an email and hopefully someone will reply.
Quote from: LarryInMichigan on September 06, 2017, 04:39:11 PM
That is one meeting that I would NOT want to attend ;)
Larry
Same here, they probably need to have good ventilation... ;D
If you have a translator that will show pictographs as a translation, you might try translating the words "electric" or "telephone" that might give a clue.
Here's pictures of the candlestick. The phone and receiver weighs in at 2 lb 4 oz. Compared to a 20B that weighs in at 4 lb 5 oz with 122 ost. The phone is so light that at first I thought maybe this was a toy phone. The 122 ost weighs 14 oz, the Japanese receiver 9 oz. I included a picture of the transmitter - I'm guessing that there should be carbon in the middle where the screw is. The metal on the base and stem is very thin, not like a western electric candlestick.
Western Electric had a majority ownership in Nippon Electric (NEC), and started exporting phones to China in 1904. If the tag on this phone is Chinese, then maybe this is one of those sets that was exported.
There is more writing on the side of the transmitter that I will take pictures of after I clean the phone up.
When I was playing with the translation thing, the words "gas", "electric", and "corporation" seemed to come up, but the top two characters were pretty unsure as they popped up as both Tokyo and as Beijing, two very different places in very different countries...
Tokyo Gas and Electric was a pretty big deal in that hemisphere until WWII put a damper on everything. They were known for making a little bit of everything (not unlike the US GE) across several industries. I would not be surprised if they made phones for export to China, as China had a fairly limited industrial capacity (and little "tech") in the 1900s until fairly recently (Thanks to Nixon and out-sourcing).
Here's a few pictures of the phone after I cleaned it up. I see definite W.E. influence on the way the phone is assembled. I also saw some GPO influence - the way the base plate fits on with a notch, and only one center screw in the base. There was some writing on the edge of the transmitter, and the underside of the receiver arm. I also updated the pictures of the tag on the base.
The receiver and mouthpiece are a nice brown - I tried to install a W.E. mouthpiece, but the w.e. threads were too large. Not off by much.
I wouldn't have thought it could be made to look that nice. Good work!
Quote from: twocvbloke on September 06, 2017, 09:52:27 AM
My smartphone set to chinese mode comes up with "Tokyo" and "Meeting of the group of people with gas", which kind of seems a bit odd if that's right........ ;D
That would describe politicians.
Nah, politicians haven't got gas, they're just full of hot air... :P
Have you found any further information on the C/S .... it sparkles love the hook switch...Im in Asia i look for a japanse speaker or better yet i print it out and have my son bring it to his school someone there speaks Japanses..
No i haven't. It would be nice if someone could translate the tags. Thanks
Quote from: wds on April 09, 2018, 09:52:25 PM
No i haven't. It would be nice if someone could translate the tags. Thanks
Dave,
i will print them out and ask around it shouldn't take long.. i live in Philippines.. i get it translated for you..
Rob
Dave,
here is what our Japanese friend told me....
The black plate at the bottom says Asahi Gumi Dennki Shoukai I googled it they are still around when you go to there site it has line man on the cover page..seems like there version of WE..
the engraving on the transmitter reads Patented 53560
hope this helps
Rob
Thanks. I will see what I can find on this company.
cool let us know what you come up with and anything else i can help with
rob