Northern Electric 223H Payphone

[.....]

 Thanks to Payphone installer's information and suggestion. I purchased this Northern Electric 223H Payphone. He believes that it is one of the more rarer and harder to find Canadian payphones.

[RotarDad]

Doug - Nice phone!  That one still has the earlier type dual-coil relay, and appears to be 100% complete.  Paint looks very good too!  How much did you pay if you don't mind sharing?

[oldguy]

Great phone, congratulations.

[.....]

Thanks Paul and Gary.

Doug - Nice phone!  That one still has the earlier type dual-coil relay, and appears to be 100% complete.  Paint looks very good too!  How much did you pay if you don't mind sharing?

Paul,

I gave the fellow his asking price of $325.00 CDN / $264.00 USD because he had it advertised as a 233. The 233's around here are between $200.00 to $350.00 depending on the condition. He only posted one frontal picture of it, so I asked if he would send me some pictures of the inside. When I seen the 223 markings, I asked Payphone Installer about it and showed him the picture. This is what he said about it.

Yep that's a real nice piece, looks like probably a cast backboard. It also looks like the chute may be marked CAN for Canada and it has the N/E bottom, also looks like the door that was not usually marked with orange paint on the H series phones.
I would buy that in a heart beat if it is reasonable. You can find the common 233G and A/E 85's all day. A phone like this is hard to come by. I always chase the odd numbers. Sell the common stuff use the money to by the rare stuff. I have been doing it for years. I would rather have 10 good pieces then a hundred common ones.


Thanks to Payphone Installer I decided to buy it and contacted the fellow. He was a 2 hour drive away, but in the long run it was worth it.

All my wife said to me was "Merry Christmas" I wonder what that means???

Here is the Kijiji ad and the pictures he sent me.
The 223H beside my 197H.
Placed in its new home.

[Butch Harlow]

Very nice inside and out.

[RotarDad]

Doug - That is a very reasonable price - you did well I believe.  The 223 and 197 you have are very similar.  Payphone Installer can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the only difference is that the 223 has the terminal board at the the top of the backboard, while the 197 has the 101B coil mounted on a metal bracket instead.  The 223, like all 2XX, requires a subset (685A), while the 197 (like all 19X) has the coil, so no subset is required, although they we were often installed with ringer boxes (531A).

The 197 is like a 302 phone-circuit-wise, without equalization, while the 223 is the newer 500 phone circuit (with built-in equalization in the 425B network in the 685A sunset).  Interesting that the desk set 500 came out in late '49 and was in full swing production by the early 50s, but the Payphone cut-over to 500-style appears to be late-50s.  Perhaps Bell wanted to keep production high for residential service in the early days. (Just realized I'm thinking US here, Canada timeline might be different.....)