I've collected phones since 1980; I was AFCA member 876 (now lapsed, I'm sorry to say). I had a pretty nice collection but I sold most of my phones over the years and have focused on other hobbies. But I never lost my interest, and never got rid of all my phones..... I was pleased to discover this forum and have had fun lurking, and last night I emailed Dave Hunter to give him a scan of an original Strowger dial card, which he has uploaded for anyone to copy.
Anyway, I thought I'd share one of the phones I kept. It has no dial so it's perhaps inappropriate here, but I love it. I bought it at the Paris flea market in January 2002, barely a week after the Euro became the official currency. Interesting times; everyone was struggling with the new money. Including me. I had lived in France years ago, traveled extensively on business and pleasure for decades and still retain a deep emotional attachment to the Franc. To this day I still carry an 1898 silver 1-Franc coin as a good-luck piece. God only knows how many glasses of wine this coin bought as it was spent and re-spent over many years. Anyway, I saw this phone hanging on the wall in a stall and fell in love. I know I paid too much (it's the Paris flea market, after all -- everything's overpriced) but I couldn't live without it.
It was made by Louis Pasquet, dated 1905, and marked as "Propriété de État" -- government property (all phones were at the time, just as Ma Bell owned all phones in the US). Lovely design, 'mother-in-law' extension (found on just about all French phones up to the 1990s), and LeClanché batteries for power. It is, as a friend who works at the Ford Museum called it, "deathly beautiful."
And no, it's not hooked up. All I have (currently, no pun intended) wired for use are a 1930s AE payphone (separate speaker and receiver) and an 1890s New England Telephone Co. ringer box which I used in place of the detested electronic chirps on our modern phones -- all shut off.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to learning a lot more here.
(Edit for spelling).
