Yard Sale-ing!

[Nilsog]

While out yardsaling today I hit a place that claimed to have some old phones. The guy said he sold two 40s/50s era phones just before I got there. Disappointed, I trooper'd on. I hit three more yardsales, no joy. Finally, I headed to the local flea market. No luck there either... on the way home my fiancee pointed out a place I didn't even see. Within about 30 seconds of stepping out of my car I came upon these-

A Stromberg Carlson phone of some sort

On the front there are two knobs and two red buttons. the left knob is a two position and the right seems to be the volume.



Instead of a jack or the usual cut cord, it had two alligator clips and an electric plug.



The heandset has a PTT button.







I haven't opened the set yet, but the date here says 66



and this lovely butt-set







The buttset has two broken screw holes on the top and is held together with electrician's tape. The rotary works and the alligator clips and wires are in good condition.

All in all, I spent $25. The guy I bought them from is a neighboring town's fire chief and said he comes across the stuff all the time and he would hold it for me in the future. So today was a win in my book!

[Adam]

The Stromberg-Carlson set is a two-way radio remote control unit.  Something that definitely could have been in the firehouse.

Very cool!

[Nilsog]

Is that something that I could possibly make work with my ITT set, or would I need a base station too?

[Adam]

:-)  No, you need a base station, and I'd venture to guess they both controlled 2 different radios from very different periods.

But the components are all standard, I'm sure you could rewire them to do something fun.  With a  little work you could at least rewire them to be standard phones, of course, you couldn't dial, and they probably also don't have ringers in them...  You'd probably have to add a standard phone network, too.  You can usually find these for cheap on eBay.  I think oldphoneworks has them too...

[Nilsog]

Might be fun to try and figure something out. I have a lot of old radio equipment at my disposal, and a friend who lives on a nearby mountain. I'll see how creative I can get.