Hello from Germany

[countryman]

Hi all,
first I'd like to thank Dennis for approving my registration request.
I'm new to the classic phone hobby and I'm not. I tinkered with phones at the age of 16 or 17, in the early to mid eighties. I was interested in electronics but neither made it to mastership nor turned it into my profession. I had a couple of working rotary phones and finally even made my own lelephone exchange to hook them together. Digging that out and seeing if it still works might be a next project...
With job and everything I completely abandoned the subject - cordless phones and mobiles came and went and I did not care much about them while my old stuff still existed.
Funny enough, my son's wish for  faster internet gave me the push to dig them out again. Faster internet meant to finally abandon the ISDN + DSL hookup we had for years and subscribe for all IP service. I had to dig into the subject to find out whether and how my beloved analog fax and the telephone setup in the house could still work. Actually that proved to be so trouble free that I tried my "old treasures" and voilá - they work just fine with the "latest of technologies" like they were never made for anything else :-)
I now registered here to learn more about international rotary phones, follow the forum better and maybe make remarks and requests now and then.
I currently own
-various grey german thermoplastic phones from the 70ies
-an ivory german W48 made by Krone with incomplete/non original interior
-a belgian ATEA "kettle phone", copper plated in it's second life, a gift from my parents for christmas ?1984? after I liked it on an antique market
-an Elmeg lineman's handset
-new purchase / ebay bargain, couldn't resist: Swedish 1951 LM Ericsson DBH 15X22

Thanks for reading, and best regards, Dietrich

[Doug Rose]

Welcome to the Forum...you will enjoy it here....Doug

[Key2871]

Welcome to the forum. We all have different stories on what brought us here. This is a great place to learn more about old phones.

[HarrySmith]

Welcome! This is the best place on the net for old phones. Post pictures of your stuff when you have a chance. We love pictures.

[Greg G.]

Hi all,

I currently own

-an ivory german W48 made by Krone with incomplete/non original interior

Thanks for reading, and best regards, Dietrich

Like this one?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/372634118516
( dead link 05-17-21 )

[countryman]

Thanks for the welcome, I really appreciate it!
Yes, exactly like this one. The W48 was wide spread, but ivory versions were rare in private houses. They must have been more frequent in a medical environment.
I found mine in the trash bin of our school after a theater performance. The group must have used it as a requisite and then thrown away. I glued the broken plastic (melamin resin?) and added a piece that I moulded from automotive body filler. It thankfully had the hookswitch inside and the outer parts of the dial, plus the original handset. It was missing all other interiors. I made the terminal board from a piece of white plastic, added the capacitor and resistor following the printed schematic. I found a dial mechanism fitting the outer parts and the single bell ringer from a later plastic phone in a surplus store.
First I modified a small 220V transformer as a transducer, that worked, but not well. Later I found a printed circuit board from an 80ies model phone and took the transducer out. This one works perfectly. German Bundespost used the W48 schematic for a long while...
The old microphone was dead now, so I made a new transistor mic and put it into the old capsule. Maybe I'll post about that later. Also I purchased a new original looking cloth handset cord because the old one was plain ugly. The connection cord is modern with the german TAE plug introduced in the late 80ies.
This W48 is far from being perfect or original but it works and I like it. Preserves the days of my youth, when I first fixed it :-)

[RB]

Hello. Great story!
And welcome to the sandbox!
Grab a shovel, and dig in!

[dsk]

Welcome to the forum!  I love such creative ways of solving problems, it is a sign of understanding how it works!

dsk

[Dan/Panther]

Dietrich;
Welcome to the forum. Can you show the repair to the broken shell ?
D/P

[countryman]

The bigger piece was glued back in, the smaller piece where the cloth cord enters was moulded from epoxy filler and painted with cream colored paint. The filler shrinks over time and has come off a little.
While looking at the back of the phone I see a Richard Bosse & Co. logo on it like on the dial - I only had noticed the Krone logo on the bottom plate before! So this phone was made out of 2 at some time.