If These Shirts Could Talk: The Tantalizing Tales Behind Used Clothes
Jockeying for Position: How Boxers and Briefs Got Into Men's Pants
Gloriously Grotesque 19th-Century Pipes
In the Hot Seat: Is Your Antique Windsor a Fake?
Love at First Kite: How Pizza and Pente Led to One Oklahoman's High-Flying Obsession
Blood, Sweat, and Steel: My Afternoon with the Ace of Swords
'The Great Gatsby' Still Gets Flappers Wrong
Say Ahhh: An Oral Surgeon's Quest to Reimagine the Garage-Band Guitar
Forget TV Pickers, Meet the Real Mavericks of the Antiques World
Coveting The Craziest Cat-People Collectibles
Posted 1 year ago
rds79
(1 item)
I bought this at my father's estate auction. My dad worked for the telephone company for 40+ years. I have been told that it may be some sort of alarm system for early telephone or telegraph equipment. It has no markings. It looks like you would wind it up and there are 4 sets of relays each of which I would assume would be wired to one of the 5 connectors along the top. The relays are mounted on a sheet of copper so that sheet is probably connected to the fifth relay as a common ground, or possible to the noise making mechanism. I have more pictures available. I would love to know just what this thing is called. Anybody got a guess?
TelephonesPeople started collecting phones shortly after Alexander Graham Bell patent…