Dear Friends.

I would like to start a thread that does not have to rigorously stick to one subject. As I have noticed by reading the forums relating to the 3 pin Aussie mains plug, and the forum about the M.E.N. System, some subjects draw-in related content.

What I propose is that members can post pictures that mean something to them, and give a description of each, and why the person posting them values them.

Also, there appears to be no place on this forum for members to relate stories about their working life. In the trenches, (as I prefer to call it).

So, if this posting meets with the blessing of the Administrator, I shall begin with the following photographs.

First of all, I must explain, that I like old things, and as I drive from service call, to service call, around Sydney each day, the boredom of being stuck in traffic is broken by the abundance of Art-Deco buildings that still exist here in Sydney.

Picture one.

Australian Telephone plug. Different to the one pictured else-where on this site. When I attended my one and only meeting of the Telephone Preservation Society, two members spotted it instantly and informed me that it was for a “Portable Telephone,” and as I did not wish to appear ignorant, I left it as such.

Why I like it. It is the only one that I have ever seen. During the early 1960's when we first got our telephone the socket was a 605? Please forgive me if I have made a mistake. A schoolmate who lived a couple of hundreds of meters up the hill, or as we would have then said a couple of hundred yards, had a telephone. Their telephone was a black Bakelite phone. It was wired directly to a terminal box (rectangular).
Picture two. comments as for picture one.



Pictures three and four.



Still don't know what it is. I've visited numerous websites without finding an answer. It is/was varnished wood with three pins. One pin is larger than the other two. My guess is that it is a three pin main plug from the 1920's.
Why I like it. It is probably older than anything that I have in my collection. Older than any of my Coffin radios. (sorry, Wirelesses). I shall leave off here for now.

Wayne, the Labrat. I still have to find out how to post pictures. Be assured. If I can find a way to post them. I shall.

Wayne.

OK Wayne, what do you have in the way of 'coffin radios'. I assume you are referring to early 20's USA radios? If so I am into them!

Baz

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Baz

VK6MU

Next picture.

A couple of old consumables. 1 st a tin containing a crystals for old radios.
2nd. A tin containing stylii for old gramophones.

Why I like them.

I still have the contents of each tin. They are not abstract. I can produce the pictures of the tongs, crystals, stylii from each.

Wayne the labrat.

G'day Wayne,

I am still working on a new photo posting function. In the meantime you can email the photos to me and I will upload them for you.

By the way, threads of this kind are quite welcome.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

At a place I worked at until last year there was a huge sandstone mansion that contained sockets for both types of these plugs. Although long disconnected, this same building still had gasoliers fitted to the walls of many rooms and provision for the same to hang from the ceilings in the larger rooms.

The first plug is indeed for the old Bakelite telephones. I have one with that plug fitted though oddly, this plug was superseded by a hard-wired junction box which many of these phones are still fitted with.

Also, Clipsal make a special purpose plug top, rated at 240V, which is similar to this plug - the difference being that the two side pins are parallel with the bottom pin rather than the top pin. The pin layout is the same though. The later version is often used for exit lights that are installed with a plug-in arrangement and wired in the non-sustained mode. Click the link above and scroll down to halfway down page seven to view the pin pattern.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

This one looks like a 3 phase power plug and earth ground but w/o a neutral, or 2 phase with a neutral and an earth ground. I would not have thought it was for telephones.

Pictures 3 & 4 looks like a very old version of one of these:-

http://www.iec.ch/worldplugs/typeD.htm.

It looks like 2 of the split pins are broken on the wooden one.

Here is an interesting mains plug from South Africa.

They are quite chunky and are similar in dimensions to the British plug except the pins are round instead of rectangular. These plugs are also used in Swaziland, Lesotho and Namibia, but not in Zimbabwe.

Here are a pair of adapter sockets.



The one on the left is for the South African plug and the smaller one on the right could be for the mystery wooden plug on this thread.

The plugs shown in post#1 and post # 6 are certainly for phones, as I have a phone with this plug still attached as originally assembled. The mating socket still has some wires attached that are telephone type as well.

Harold

^ Yep, and you can buy plug and socket here for $22.50 each:

http://www.authenticlightingandhardware.com/bakelite-phone-parts.html.

Thinking of changing my user name to "invisible man"

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Baz

VK6MU

The wooden one might have a jumper wire in it to activate something?

Dear Baz F
My collection of Coffin Radios currently numbers seven.
One commercially made one is a 1924 Crosley, model 52. It has been fully restored and works. Unfortunately, like all other radios of this era, connected to a diaphragm horn speaker, it sounds like sh**. Is this from where, the expression, “Telephone Quality” comes?

The next commercially made one is a little tin can Telefunken.

I have a mystery set which I believe to be commercially made. Its only marking is, Radiophone Prince, on the front panel. It is a 4/5 valve set. It operates on four valves for headphones, or if one purchases a fifth valve, one can then drive a horn speaker for multiple listeners. Note. Back in those days, the price of radios did not include the valves! They were extras. They were ordered according to what batteries were going to power them. Example six volt valves if one had a spare car battery,
(correct name is storage battery). If however, one did not have a car battery, it would be cheaper to order two volt valves and purchase a two volt lead acid accumulator as this would be cheaper than a car battery.
The radio, sorry wireless is of T.R.F. Neutrodyne circuitry.

I have never been able to find another, nor find one on the internet. It is just so flash, that I find it impossible to believe that if is not commercially made.

The other sets are all home made.

Wayne

Cheers Wayne.

I have a Crosley 52, also 50, 51, and Ace 5.

Also have Atwater Kent 35 20 and 40 and a Tri-City and Radiola 3.

I just love these simple 1, 2 and 3 valve wirelesses.

Also have half a dozen horn / cone speakers

Unfortunately, hard to come by in Oz and freight from USA is a killer.

If you post pics of your Radiophone on Antique Radio Forum it will likely be identified.

Keep up the good work!

Baz

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Baz

VK6MU

Often sets were kits, I serviced one some time back It was unidentified, but it was pretty obvious on the origin, as all of the parts were Kellogg except valve (two missing) which was a Philips and probably not original as Kellogg, for a time made valves.