Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!gryphon!vector!telecom-gateway From: lloyd!sunfs3!kent@husc6.harvard.edu (Kent Borg) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Telephone History: For Sale? Message-ID: Date: 21 Sep 89 16:58:37 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Kent Borg Organization: Camex, Inc., Boston, Mass USA Lines: 29 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 395, message 4 of 12 There have recently been some wonderful articles on the history of telecommunications: automatic equipment for dialing undertakers, time from Western Union, etc. Thank you to all who have written them. Very nice stuff. My question is where might I buy an 11-hole Stowger dial phone, or a Western Union clock? (Would be sooo much fun to synchronize it to WWV. Both the historian and techno-nerd in me start drooling at the thought.) How about simply the oldest dial phone which will still talk to a modern switch, or an even older non-dial phone which will ring and let me answer? Must I just go look through the regular antique channels, or are there better ways? I might have just acquired an expensive taste... Kent Borg "You know me, bright ideas kent@lloyd.uucp just pop into my head!" or -Mrs Lovett ...!husc6!lloyd!kent (from Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeny Todd") [Moderator's Note: Well, you can't purchase my two Western Union clocks, one of which hangs on the wall here in my computer room right in front of me; despite a terminal which tells me the time, a system command which does the same, my wristwatch, a digital clock in a little stand, and one of those Radio Shack Weather/WWV receivers, I still prefer the big telegraph clock the best. I attached a little doorbell button and a piece of wire up to it and a nine volt battery hidden inside the case. To synch it, I listen to WWV, and press the doorbell switch at the appropriate time. PT]