Japanese Siemens-FUSI No 1 Telephone

[LarryInMichigan]

My Japanese Fusi No 1 phone just arrived.  I bought this from a guy in TN who had it in his store and advertised it on craigslist.  I paid a total of $50.  The phone is in very good condition.  The tip of one of the cradle ears was apparently broken off and reattached with epoxy.  The ring which holds the mouthpiece is cracked, and the rubber stress relief sleeves (one looks like a lump of tape by the handset) are totally hard and brittle, but other than that, the condition is quite nice.  I didn't find a date anywhere, but I would guess that the phone is from around 1940.  The seller told me that this came from the estate of a man who had collected a large number of WW2 era items.

This phone has the weird mechanism which locks the dial from turning when on-hook.  The bottom plate is actually made of bakelite, but amazingly, it is not broken.  The shell is also all bakelite.  I expect that the amount of metal used was kept to a minimum because of the war, though the finger wheel and finger stop are metal.

Of course, I did connect this phone to my line, and I was able to dial my home number and leave a voicemail message.  The sound quality was not very good, but it did work.

Larry

[Haf]

This phone has the weird mechanism which locks the dial from turning when on-hook.

As it's a Japanese copy of the German w28 is has the Nummernschalter 30 (dial) which mechanically blocks the dial from dialing with handset on-hook.

very nice phone

Haf

[LarryInMichigan]

According to the Siemens website, in 1923, Fusi Denki Seizo KK was founded as a joint venture of Furukawa and Siemens, so I would assume that "FUSI" stands for Furukawa and Siemens.

I did a bit more looking at the phone and found that the transmitter is interchangeable with those from my Austrian, German, Italian, Dutch, Swiss, etc. phones, so I tried the phone with the good Italian transmitter in it, and the sound quality was better but still not very good.  The bakelite is very lightweight and a bit coarse, similar to the Soviet phone.  It seems extremely fragile, so I am quite impressed that the phone has survived until now (and I hope to continue that trend).

Larry

[rdelius]

Date on capacator   19= Showa 19=1944,3rd month.I have posted one of these sets in the past.Not as nice as yours.FUSI now Fujusu

[Dennis Markham]

Interesting and nice looking phone, Larry.  Glad it found its way to your house.