Wierd looking phones for sale

[wds]

I'm sure by now a lot of you have seen these phones on Ebay.  Some of them are going for pretty good money - to me they look like home made contraptions, but is it possible these are original pieces?  Does anyone recognize these phone parts?  Seller has several of these parts for sale.

http://tinyurl.com/auynhdl


Sold price for picture #1 was $227.50
Sold price for picture #2 was$66.55

[wds]

Here's another one he has for sale - I actually have this transmitter, but thought it was cobbled together by someone.  Now that I see another one I'm curious who manufactured this and for what purpose.

Sold price was $82.55

[HowardPgh]

That seller has some neat stuff. 

[Dan/Panther]

Nothing jumps out as being fakes. I got ripped off by a fake Korean Candlestick a few years back, and now have a basic, what to look for data base in my head. None appears to be in these items.
D/P

[Russ Kirk]

I am far from being an expert,  but these look like they could be microphones.

[wds]

Here are pictures of a couple more.

Sold price for pictures 1 & 3 was $304
sold price for picture 2 was $160.50

[Dan/Panther]

I agree completely they are not phones but rather microphones. But even still, they are genuine I'm sure.
D/P

[Nick in Manitou]

The first photo posted by WDS looks unusable the way it is.

Perhaps the 90 degree item that looks like a mouthpiece is actually not supposed to be there.

If there were an earphone looking piece there it might make more sense.

Otherwise if you lift the device off the hanger and hold on to what looks like a handle, it would be tough to get your mouth to where it would need to be to talk into that funnel and even more difficult to get that thing up to your ear!

But then again, I have been wrong before...

[wds]

I added sold prices to the pictures.

[HowardPgh]

Picture #1 looks like a Federal radio microphone.  The mouth piece is just oriented 90 deg off.
Howard

[G-Man]

Most look cobbled together from old parts and pieces. Number one looks as if someone removed the receiver and replaced it with the transmitter and hung it on a laboratory test stand. The plug does not look to be the same vintage and the transmitter does not look to be in a usable position for use as a microphone.

Number two looks as if it was attached to a standard flexible lamp arm.

Other "transmitters" are actually receivers with coils instead of carbon granules. It is also suspicious he has come across so many unmarked/unknown transmitters.

Also there would not be much use for standalone microphones until tube amplifiers came into use in the '20s and most of these look to be rather crude for that era.   

[Sargeguy]

I saw these and the reminded me of when I had to clean out my grandfather's basement, he was a machinist had a lot of miscellaneous stuff he saved.