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Have an Extra 10K Hanging Around?

Started by Doug Rose, January 13, 2012, 08:22:13 AM

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Doug Rose

Well....if you do, this sure is a beauty!.....Doug

http://tinyurl.com/6ttzev5
Kidphone

TelePlay

I wonder how they came up with this shipping rate: $226.97?

Why not $230? $225? Seems high, even for first overnight.

HarrySmith

That has been up for a while. The seller is Dan Golden, longtime collecter with very deep pockets and also of Mannequin phone fame.
Harry Smith
ATCA 4434
TCI

"There is no try,
there is only
do or do not"

GG



The listing says: "It has only the top of the original bell box attached to the base of the phone.  According to historical documents, this is correct."  According to me, it's not correct, and the photos prove it.  See the next-to-last photo in the listing and look at the top of the photo: there's a strip of wood at the top of the ringer box that was broken off roughly.  Probably part of the actual top of the ringer box.

And it appears that the underside of the desk stand shows a bunch of wires and screws visible in a manner suggesting that it can't sit flat on a table due to the random bulges of those elements.  Also it appears that the desk stand is connected to the ringer box by two thick green cords each having multiple conductors.  There would have had to be some kind of wooden base below what was shown there, to enable the phone to sit flat on the table. 

Topside along the front of the desk stand base, appears to be a metal strip stamped with the numbers 1, (blank space), 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and a bunch of metal contacts on the underside.  This looks like something you would see in an intercom where buttons would connect the top common strip to individual contacts underneath, to buzz other stations.  But there are no buttons visible, and the absence of position 2 plus the fact that the numeral 2 appears in place of the numeral 3 at at the next position, is intriguing.

So at very minimum we have an incomplete phone: a few things are missing, the top of the ringer box being one, and a probable wooden base to go under the desk stand base as shown, being another.  The ringer is an AC ringer, but there is no magneto anywhere to be seen, nor any capacitor. 

Looks to me like a mystery waiting for a clue in the form of some kind of patent application or other documents. 


TelePlay

#4
Auction pictures 3, 5 and 7 show the right side of the ringer box, to the right of the bells, is flat in that the base moulding is missing.

Picture 7 shows two holes in that flat side (just above the mouthpiece) which seems to indicate that this bell ringer box, while sitting on a flat surface, was also attached by its side to another flat surface.

And, the placement of the desk stand in several photos is misleading.