News:

"The phone is a remarkably complex, simple device,
and very rarely ever needs repairs, once you fix them." - Dan/Panther

Main Menu

AE 40 with Black Number Plate from 1945

Started by TelePlay, April 19, 2017, 11:59:26 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

TelePlay

Toward the end of March, Fabius posted an eBay link to a Stromberg Carlson 1243 titled listing with pictures of an interesting black number plate AE 40.

     http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=17885.0

It was listed with a BIN $12.95 plus about $15 in shipping. Bought it as soon as I say the listing not knowing what I was going to get. The box arrived in a few days and inside I found this phone, a very nice SC 1243, metal housing with very good paint, original straight cloth cords and chrome plungers and number card holder. A very clean phone inside and out but not at AE 40 with black number plate.



Contacted the seller and after convincing him I did not the phone pictured, he told me he still had the phone and would ship it to me. I told him I would ship the SC back after I receiver the AE 40. My intent at that point was to keep the SC and pay him for the AE 40 plus shipping, another $28.

A week later, the AE 40 showed up in a battered box, poor packing and a busted corner. The bad packing was documented in this topic, along with pictures.

     http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=717.msg185477#msg185477

After contacting the seller about the damage, I was willing to pay half the postage to get the AE 40 to me and I keep the phone, both phones. He was very accommodating and let me keep the busted AE 40 for free, and not pay him anything for shipping - so totally free.

Got a good replacement housing from Doug Rose which will repair the damage so while I got the phone for free, the repair, the new housing will be about $45. And, for that money, I gain a carry handle.

Opened up the AE 40 today to find a very clean, near all original phone from March 1945. Except for an obvious replaced ringer wire (red, about 14 gauge stranded ?), all else was there including a folded wiring diagram attached to the base in like new condition.

The vent screening was there, one side was one long piece which had fallen off and the other side had two short pieces, of of which had fallen off.

Has a straight  line ringer that works, the dial works smoothly and the handset and line cord are 1/4" thick original in very good condition.

Both handset elements are Type 41 and both dated Mar 45. The rubber base gasket was missing, or never installed, and the base was covered with black felt, for some reason.

Except the being two sandwiches short of a picnic in his packing efforts, this was a very nice phone, for free.

So, the questions are, what's up with the black number plate and why the felt base? AE_Collector thought it was a Navy phone. Don't know. Any ideas?

TelePlay

More pictures . . .

unbeldi

I also think it was a Navy phone.
The black dial number plate is typical for that customer, and all Navy sets are marked with a G leading the ordering number, in this case GL-7000.
The felt cover was used during the war, when rubber was scarce for a while until efficient processes for synthetic material became available.
But I do think this was well before the 1945 date.  I think those dates are probably when the set was refurbished.

TelePlay

unbeldi, thanks.

AE_Collector, when he gets back from holiday, wants the cap and coil and other numbers so he may be able to get a better date on the phone.

Interesting in that both elements had the same date but, yes, I thought, and was hoping, it was a much older phone as well but need help dating this phone correctly. On a quick look, those are the only two dates I found.

Didn't know about the "G" being Navy but it is there. Thanks for that.

unbeldi

I think, the dates were only used on parts supplied to the Navy during the war.  I have not seen verbatim dates on parts for civilian telephones.  That is the puzzle we are still trying to solve.

Jack Ryan

The navy guys must use their dialling pencils with gusto as there are extra struts behind the dial.

Jack

unbeldi

They called it ruggedized.   8)  So the dial is still in place when a bullet strikes the shell.

Jack Ryan

Quote from: unbeldi on April 19, 2017, 09:27:47 PM
They called it ruggedized.   8)  So the dial is still in place when a bullet strikes the shell.

I can see that would be a useful aim.

Jack