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Ad Rates / Articles / Classified Ads / Editorial / Home / Links / Showtime   Antiques and Collectibles Articles   Follow the arrows to other stories Add some ring to your things   By Don Woodbury Antique telephones can provide a great finishing touch to a period decorating scheme. Telephones have been around for over 130 years, so there are models available to fit into any decorating theme, from Victorian times forward.   Best of all, most antique telephones can be made to function on modern telephone lines, thereby providing both a practical and functional addition to your decor.   In order to function, a telephone requires a source of direct current. When this is provided by a central office, the telephone service is known as "common battery" since all telephones on the system share a common power source.   The public telephone network currently in use is a common battery system, and most common battery phones (ie phones that don't have batteries) will function on the system regardless of their vintage.   Minor wiring adjustments will sometimes be required to a vintage common battery phone in order make it functional, and almost certainly some basic maintenance will be required on mechanical components, such as the dial, in order to ensure that phone is operating within specifications. But these are minor obstacles when you consider the novelty and practicality of having a fully functional vintage phone in your home.   Contrary to popular belief, traditional rotary “pulse” dialing is still supported by most phone companies in North America. With few exceptions, you should be able to connect a rotary dial phone to your phone line and use it to place calls.   While you may have problems navigating some automated systems that expect DTMF tones, a rotary dial phone can still provide a great deal of functionality in everyday use. Unfortunately, some of the new Internet-based phone services do not support rotary dialing, so you may want check for rotary dial compatibility with your provider.   If your line doesn't support rotary dialing, there are some alternatives to make your rotary dial functional. Handheld DTMF tone dialers are available that will allow you to send dialing tones through the transmitter of your phone thereby eliminating the need to use a rotary dial.   As an alternative, there are converters available that you can install between your phone and the phone line that will convert the pulses from a rotary dial to tones that are recognized by any phone system. Either of these devices will ensure that vintage rotary dial telephones remain fully functional in the years to come.   During the early days of telephony, Canada was largely a rural country. While cities were generally serviced by a central telephone office that provided the power required to run the telephone system, a different strategy was used to support the towns, villages and farms located outside major urban areas.   In these cases, local battery service was usually provided where each phone on the system was powered by its own battery. This strategy allowed power requirements to be easily customized on a site by site basis so that phones located at a great distance from the central office could be provided with an additional battery, thereby giving a higher operating voltage to the device.   Early rural telephone lines were typically shared by a large number of subscribers thereby creating a “party line” where every subscriber on a given line could monitor the calls of any other subscriber on the same line.   Each line ran back to the central office where it terminated on a switchboard. The switchboard operator could cross connect telephone lines allowing a subscriber to call any other subscriber serviced by the same switchboard. The operator could also cross connect between switchboards within the same office, or connect to other central offices, thereby allowing for long distance calls.   With local battery service, each individual telephone provided its own ringing current by way of a hand cranked magneto. By cranking the magneto, the phone user would send current down the phone line that would cause each telephone connected to the same line to ring. Through the use of ringing codes (ie. two short, one long), it was possible to contact other subscribers on the same line. Similarly, the switchboard operator could be notified if the subscriber wanted to be connected to another telephone line. Local battery service is not in use today on the public telephone system and hence local battery phones cannot be used on the modern common battery system without modification. Local battery phones can be easily identified since they usually have a hand cranked magneto. Many of the early wood wall phones are local battery, and a large number of wall and desk telephones from the early decades of the 20th century were wired to a magneto subset to allow for local battery operation. Conversion of a local battery phone to common battery usage not uncommon, but it is important that any such conversion is undertaken in such a way that it does not impact on the historical integrity of the phone, and that any such changes are fully reversible.   A common battery “upgrade” to a local battery phone generally involves bypassing the existing coil in the phone, and the installation of the new “network.” Cords are often replaced with new reproductions, and the transmitter and receiver elements are sometimes upgraded to provide optimal performance on modern phone lines.   To refinish, or not to refinish, is a hot topic in telephone collecting circles. Some collectors feel the value of any telephone lies in its history, and that the existing condition of a telephone tells the story of that history. To others, the telephone is a technological device with a value that is determined by its functionality.   The “technological” collectors will place the greatest value on a restored and working instrument. Regardless, it is important to respect the original integrity of the telephone wherever possible, and to ensure that any changes made in the interest of functionality, are reversible to the greatest possible extent. The Internet has been a boon for telephone collectors. It has made it possible to find original parts for antique and classic phones from a wide variety of sources, and experts on refurbishing and restoration are only mouse click away. Reproduction parts, such as cloth-covered cords, are readily available and they can add a finishing touch to any phone restoration project.   Photo 1 - Classic Kellogg 925 "ashtray" phone from 1940s.   Photo 2 - Northern Electric rotary dial   Photo 3 - Northern Electric 302 - 1940s deskphone compatible with modern telephone system Don Woodbury is the owner of Oldphoneworks, a Kingston, Ontario, based supplier of vintage telephones and phone parts. You can reach Oldphonworks at 1-800-843-1320 or visit www.oldphoneworks.com   Return to top of page   This Is Livin' Publishing © 2007 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster