My Princess Phone Collection

[Dewdrop]

I'm trying out my Christmas present. It's a Nikon Coolpix S630. Took some inside pictures of my Princess phones. It's cold and snowing here in the foothills of the Ozarks. Hope the settings I used worked. Looks like all but one of the Princess phones would light up with a transformer. Exactly how would I connect a transformer up to one of these? Don't see very many listed on eBay. Hope ya'll had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year so far.

Debbie

[Phonesrfun]

Debbie:

You're hired!  Come and take pictures of my phones too.  Not only does your camera work well but your layout is great too.  It looks like it could be a Bell System advertisement for Princess phones!

Oh, yes, and the phones, themselves look great.

-Bill

[bellsystemproperty]

You can probably find a transformer on the ATCA or TCI listserv. The ATCA listserv costs money to join, but the TCI listserv is free. http://www.telephonecollectors.org/list/index.htm To connect the transformer there are little spades on the wire that come out of the phone. Three, I think the red, green, and yellow are for the phone line and the other two screw into the transformer. I'd take a picture, but my cat is sitting in my lap and won't get up. Great pictures!

[bwanna]

debbie..great photo shoot!  i have a transformer, you can have it for price of shipping. the transformer is plugged into an electric outlet, then wired to the second pair in the phone jack. if those are modular phones, make sure to use a 4conductor mounting cord.
nice collection of princess sets

[Dewdrop]

Bill,

I'm still trying to figure out if I need an overhead light versus just using the camera flash or both (which I did in some pics).

Debbie

[Dewdrop]

Donna,

That would be so cool. Let me know how to get my address to you and the $$ for the shipping.

Debbie

[Dewdrop]

Hey,

Me again. Before I knew what was what WHAM I won. This blue Princess is so new I don't even have it yet. It looks like the Princess phone we had in or bedroom (my sister and I) growing up. I believed our lit up and pretty sure it did ring. This one does not ring. It's dated 6-60. It will be the oldest of the bunch.

Debbie

[bingster]

Debbie, you don't need an actual Bell System transformer for lighting your phones.  Many people have a drawer full of old wall chargers, and if you have one that puts out 6-8 volts, you're good to go.  

If you have an external Princess ringer (E1), you can find complete instructions for connecting the phone and power source to the ringer here:
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=1162.0

If you have a later Princess that doesn't use an external ringer, then it's a bit easier.  Open up your phone jack and connect the red and green conductors in the phone's cord to the proper screws in the jack.  Then connect the yellow and black conductors to the other two screws.  On newer jacks, you'll find little wires already under all the screws, and you'll want to disconnect the yellow and black ones--you only want the yellow and black from the phone to be there for now.  Then take the two wires from your power adapter, strip the wires back a bit, and secure one wire under the screw with the yellow conductor, and the other adapter wire under the screw with the black conductor.  Then just plug in your adapter and see if you phone works and lights.

[McHeath]

Nice collection of Princess phones.  I have the duplicate of your yellow touch tone in our guest room.  As for transformers I agree, any one that puts out the right voltage will do, I have some oddball old transformer hooked up to my rotary Princess in our bedroom and it works well.  Too well actually as I find the light is too bright, even though it puts out the correct voltage.  So I put a DSL filter on the line and that dimmed the light down enough to make it more livable.

[AET]

Very nice phones!  I have still yet to add one of these babies to my collection.  Had a chance at a beige one for four dollars at Columbus Antique Mall, went back a week later and it was gone.  Guess you snooze you lose.

[bwanna]

here are a couple pics of how i have my 2012a transformer connected. sorry about the lighting...the jack is under the end table. normally the connecting wire is tucked up on the baseboard, so as not to be too noticeable, i pulled it out for a better visual.

[bwanna]

so i sent debbie a transformer & this bracelet was her thank you.  

she hand crafted it just for me, with my fiesta colors in mind.

you're all right, debbie   hope the transformer worked out.

[teka-bb]

Besides a "real" Princess (which I can't find right now because it's in storage) and a few of those tiny key chain ones I also have this nice Italian Princess telephone.

It even came with a tiny schematic that was folded inside the phone. It was made by Face Standard in Milan that once was an ITT subsidiary.