SA 28, a German classic from the 20´s. My first find of this month

[Matilo Telephones]

Arrived today. This makes my week, if not my month. It was a bit of a gamble, but I think I´ll keep it for my own collection.

(I often buy phones like this out of curiosity, but do not keep them. Restore them and sell on the internet).

This is a SA 28made by Brock & Goldschmidt. It is a version from the W28 family. Originally designed by Siemens & Halske in 1928. As it was not made for the Deutsche Reichspost it is an SA28 and not a W28. It was made for private installations. The difference is only the name. AFAIK the phones are otherwise exactly the same.

This Phone has different dated parts, 1929 (dial and capacitor) and 1930 (rear of upper housing). So it was made in 1930. It has the Original handset with Original caps (which is rare), orignal cords in fairly good state (which is very very rare).

It is in a good state, as fat as I can see 100% Original, down to the last screw, even the cords, end caps on the receiver including Original transmitter and receiver! The bakelite is in good state, the paintjob soso. The previous owner (son of the Original owner) has scratched his name and adres on the bottom plate and there is a bare spot on the front left corner.

We do not see many of these over here. Most of the phones of this kind here are from a different branch of the family, the VSa.tist.66 version. These do not have the handset cord out of the side, but out of the back. Also the bottom plate is fasten differently and there is no hinge on the upper housing. I have about 7 of these older W28's/VSa.tist.66's in my collection, all different versions. All from the VSa.tist.66 kind untill now.

I saw this Phone on our local ad site. Immediatly saw these Original cords and very early style handset. On further inspection I noticed the handset cord came out of the side. Many reasons to buy it. There was already a bid on it of 26 euros. I mailed the seller and made a deal quickly. 40 euros including postage (6,57). So I got it before most other collectors got wind of it. 3 days later it was here. I really snapped it up very quickly.

[Matilo Telephones]

And some more pics.

[wds]

Very nice.  Wouldn't mind having one of those in my collection.

[Haf]

As it was not made for the Deutsche Reichspost it is an SA28 and not a W28. It was made for private installations. The difference is only the name. AFAIK the phones are otherwise exactly the same.

Hi very nice original phone, seems to have found it's way to the Netherlands a while ago. About the W28/ ZB SA28 you're wrong. Both is the name given bei the "Reichstelegraphenverwaltung RTV" / "Reichspost" The SA or ZBSA for Zentralbatterie (central battery) SA =Selbstanschluss Amt (central office with self dialing eqipment) was more common with the former phones like ZB SA 19 or ZB SA 24 but as yours is a very early example of the 24 it was common to use both names for this type of phone. Your NS= Nummernschalter (dial) is the old type too, normally most SA/W28 have the NS type 30.

Very nice and original phone, you're doing right keeping it

Haf

[Contempra]

the phone looks nice Matilo but the diagram is blurry..

[Matilo Telephones]

Thanks guys.

Haf, as far as I have read ZB SA stand for ZentralBatterie SelbstAnschluss (Central battery Self dialing or self connecting). This is a designation for the type of phone, so the word Amt (office) is not logical. Besides that, then the abbreviation would be ZB SAA.

As far as I know the SA designation is typical for non-Reichspost version. For Nebenansteller, parallel manufacturers.

Not only is that based on my own obeservations, having had the chance to inspect quite a number of these phones. All of the SA28 marked phones I have seen were non-Reichspost, as all W28 marked ones were. The german wikipedia article on the W28 says the same; SA28 is for Nebenansteller i.e. non-Reichspost models.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZB/SA_24

As for the dial, the N30 is indeed the later one, but there are other types between the N24, as is found on my phone, and the N30. Check this link:

http://wendtland.org/Nummernschalter.html

The Reichspost phones all seem to have black dials made of stamped tin or bakelite. The nickel plated dials are often not a N30, perhaps never. So the N30 dial is not the only original dial found on these phones.

My modell 26 does not have an N24 dial. It has the nickelplated fingerwheel though. It is a V.Sa.sch.90a I think.

[Matilo Telephones]

the phone looks nice Matilo but the diagram is blurry..

Yes, it wasn't easy to photograph it. Perhaps I'll put it on a scanner later.

[Contempra]

Okay do Matilo . Thank you

[Haf]

Hey Matilo,

You're mistaken about the abbreviations. I suppose my German is not that bad and I collected those phones for about 20 years before changed to US phones. There is nothing saying in the Wikipedia article that a ZB SA is only for "Nebenstelle". At first, please take a look at the following links explaining the shortcuts:

http://www.bayern-online.com/v2261/artikel.cfm/203/Selbstanschluss-Amt.html

http://tinyurl.com/q96wwte

ZB= Zentralbatterie-Betrieb; SA Selbstanschluss-Amt

"Nebenstellen" phones are not allowed to carry the "ZB SA" or "W" name given by RTV or Reichspost but called "Model" (like Model 36 for example). The change from ZB SA to W was withing the production of the ZB SA/W 28, that is what indicates yours as early one (OK, it's dated, so it's easy to say it's an early one And if you mention that there are even W24 you're right but those are recalled "W" instead ZB SA later on or later productions as the ZB SA 24 was still produced after the invention of the 28.


About the dials, yes, there are of course other types as NS 30/V.Sa.sch.155a and the NS 24, even more than on the dial link you posted, for example the S&H  V.Sa.sch. 80 like the one I gave away to WDS as gift a while ago, original nickel plated fingerweel: http://tinyurl.com/qy6r3g5

Haf

[Contempra]

Unfortunately. I don't read German I have a lot of difficulties with the English, so imagine now with other languages  Haf

[Bridie]

That's a lovely phone.

[Haf]

Unfortunately. I don't read German I have a lot of difficulties with the English, so imagine now with other languages  Haf

..but your French is way better than mine, I know only very few words I don't dare to write down here, lol

[Contempra]

no problem Haf.. french is my native language.... for the English, I use a translator sometimes for some words I don't know but it's very rare because  I understand the English language but keeping a conversation.. no on a keyboard its easy cause we can take the time . . However, I kept the link in German.

[Matilo Telephones]

Haf, the word Amt means office or buro. Combined with Selbstanschluss it means Automatic Exchange, PABX. Selbstanschluss Amt is an oldfashioned expression. Today PABX translates as Vermittlungsstelle.

The first link you provided is the only one I could find that uses the word Amt in relation to the telephone apparatus itself.

The second link provided speaks only of the word Amt as being an exchange and refers to the SA Amt as the telephone exchange.

On this link: http://www.bayern-online.com/v2261/artikel.cfm/203/Einfuehrung-des-Tischfernsprecher-ZB-SA-24.html bayern-online speaks of SA as Selbstanschluss-Betrieb not Amt.

Other sites never mention the word Amt in relation to the apparatus, only as meaning exchange.

See here, about the first German exchange in Hildesheim:

http://tinyurl.com/k7zp97u    (EDIT: link shortened with TinyURL)

And of course these:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZB/SA_19
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZB/SA_24

Here the word Amt is also not mentioned in the explanation of the abbreviation SA.

As you state ""Nebenstellen" phones are not allowed to carry the "ZB SA" or "W" name given by RTV or Reichspost". I agree with you on that. My example does carry the marking SA. As it was never in the inventory of the Reichspost, how come it, being made in Germany, carries the marking SA28? SA (without the ZB) was not a Reichspost designation. They used either W or ZW SA (in relation to rotary phones). Therefor the designation SA by definition means it is a Nebensteller phone.

[Matilo Telephones]

That's a lovely phone.

Thanks. One of these days I'll write something about my collection of rare members of this family.