Not sure what's with Portland, OR and the phones I keep finding down there. I didn't even make a clean sweep of it this time. There were two other people w/phones I didn't connect with.
It's a 553A apartment phone. Very similar to my other 553A except it has that additional buzzer box on the bottom, and has the cone style transmitter. It also appears to have been originally black, then painted beige or gold, then back to black again.
Nice find.
I have always liked the apt intercom style sets.
Regarding Oregon and telephones. Many/most of the really early telephones (in collections) came from Oregon.
Jim
Too bad I can't rig it up so that it actually functions with my apartment building's front door.
Cool phone, I really like those function buttons to do various duties on the side. So where these phones usually installed in apartment houses as a routine matter, or where the various inhabitants given a choice of what to have the phone company put in?
Quote from: McHeath on March 07, 2010, 12:39:21 PM
Cool phone, I really like those function buttons to do various duties on the side. So where these phones usually installed in apartment houses as a routine matter, or where the various inhabitants given a choice of what to have the phone company put in?
Not sure. From what I've always seen in the movies, apartments in the 30s had community phones in the hallway.
Here's a couple more pics showing a couple of spots where you can see the layers of paint and also a closer look at the transmitter and receiver. The receiver needs attention, I'll probably sand it down some and try to repaint it. I'm still looking for a date stamp on this, it's not where my other 553A was.
I will remove the paint from the rectangular glass window thing and also the frame that holds it. I don't know if the window frame was originally black, but I think it would look better as polished metal. Unless anybody has a better suggestion.
The window frame on my apartment phone is black, as are the screws holding it on. This black paint on mine appears to be original, because if it had been nickel plated, it would be plated front and back. Mine has paint on the front, and apparently bare brass where the paint is not. They also had a glass cover that you should be able to have made up for you out of thin glass at a glass shop for not too much money.
Mine actually hads a schematic of the switch and the button hook up tucked away in the little switch box.
Great find, by the way! If I were still living in Portland, I guess I would have a house full of old phones and your trips would wind up being fewer and far between!
I removed the window frame, the window itself is glass and is intact except for some wear on the corners. You can see how it was painted at one time from the backside. I'm glad somebody changed it back to black, or maybe that beige or gold was a primer. But you wouldn't put a primer over the old paint, would you?
Quote from: Phonesrfun on March 07, 2010, 02:09:02 PM
The window frame on my apartment phone is black, as are the screws holding it on. This black paint on mine appears to be original, because if it had been nickel plated, it would be plated front and back. Mine has paint on the front, and apparently bare brass where the paint is not. They also had a glass cover that you should be able to have made up for you out of thin glass at a glass shop for not too much money.
Mine actually hads a schematic of the switch and the button hook up tucked away in the little switch box.
Great find, by the way! If I were still living in Portland, I guess I would have a house full of old phones and your trips would wind up being fewer and far between!
I'd still be going down there because Mom and a couple of siblings are in Vancouver, just wouldn't be coming back with phones.
Can you post a picture of your phone?
Greg:
Here are some photos of mine:
-Bill Geurts
Beautiful phones, Bill. I especially like that pay phone.
Thanks for the compliments, Dennis,
The pay phone is not entirely original, but it displays well. It is an AE semi-post-pay that has been modified to be a two-piece transmitter/receiver.
I got it about a year and a half ago while I was in Utah visiting that young man named Vern who has a BUNCH of phones and parts. I hemmed and hawed, but Vern finally won out and I came home with the phone. :)
Vern's a great guy.
I got the apartment phone from a fellow collector here in Walla Walla, WA named Charles McDonald. Charles is 80 and does not have Internet access. In fact, I am going over to his place in a few minutes to see what treasures I might find. Once, Charles and I went to an antique show about 50 miles away, and he found a full size cast iron fire hydrant he just had to have. It took two of us to lift it into the trunk of my Mustang, and we drove all the way home with the front of the car pointing uphill.
He is another great guy.
-Bill Geurts
Bill:
If he made it to 80 and wants a fire hydrant, let him have it.
;D