I bought a Bell phone truck!

[Greg G.]

Only $12.00!  1913 Ford.  Goes with my 1913 Victrola and a vintage family pic from 1913.  Found it in an antique mall near me. 

The only phones I found were a beat-up black WE 500 that had been refurbished to modular (only $42.50!), a pos touch-tone replica of one of those "french" phones ($64.50), and a Hotel phone just like mine, including bull-dog transmitter, price $450.00! 

[LarryInMichigan]

You must have a really large apartment to fit all of that stuff!

[Bill Cahill]

Neat truck! May we see the back inside, and, all the telephone goodies hidden in there?
Bill Cahill
Nice victrola, too.......

[bwanna]

way cool, greg!   
is that a vintage toy truck from 1913? or a modern replica? either way it's quite a find at a good price. 

[John S]

That truck is soooooo cool......

John

[Greg G.]

way cool, greg!   
is that a vintage toy truck from 1913? or a modern replica? either way it's quite a find at a good price. 

Modern replica, made in Hong Kong.

[Greg G.]

Neat truck! May we see the back inside, and, all the telephone goodies hidden in there?
Bill Cahill
Nice victrola, too.......

Here's the back, but the doors don't open.  Whatever goodies are in there are sealed forever.

[McHeath]

That's where the 1949 model 500 is!!

[Jim Stettler]

I think there were a series of the old phone trucks. maybe 8-10 of them. It was a telephone pioneer thing.
Some of the variations were banks and others were mounted on marble with a pen holder.

Include the van banks, 1/64 scale car/trucks , ertles (several scales) , tonka (several scales) ect. You could build an interesting collection of just phone truck models.
Jim

[gpo706]

Dude, I bought a GPO Morris van for 6 clams.

I think its 1959, and if I can get the back doors open with a hacksaw there might be enough room for a 420 jack in the rear.

[BruceP]

The "Antique Mall" didn't have any phones, so I got this truck & an unknown bell for <$50:

[Contempra]

Hi.. The Bell is probably a very old emergency bell..

[BruceP]

Hi.. The Bell is probably a very old emergency bell..

Thanks...our guess was a classroom bell.
Any clue how to drive it?
I've got a ring generator for my switchboard...

[Phonesrfun]

To me it looks to be an old but run of the mill electric bell from possibly as far back as the 30's through 70's.  Just a guess. 

I believe this bell will operate on either AC or DC because it seems to have the interrupter contact.  These would normally operate from a standard doorbell transformer at 12 to 15 volts AC which you should be able to get at any hardware store.  Most such transformers are set up to be hard-wired at an electrical box in an attic or somewhere out of the way, so you may have to wire a plug to one.

Alternatively, if you have some heavy-duty wall warts that put out 12 volts, you could try one of those to see if it will work.  Likely that it will.

A ring generator for a switchboard usually runs at 75 volts, which would be too high a voltage for this bell's coils.  Telephone ringers were designed much differently than these doorbells.

These bells were  mostly used as doorbells and other ways to signal people.  This does not look like a classroom bell, because it is so small.  Classroom bells tended to be much larger because one had to actually be able to hear the thing over the noise of noisy kids in a large classroom.

[BruceP]

Touched the leads to my truck battery and it rang loud & clear. Thanks!