1924 WESTERN ELECTRIC B1 E1 ANTIQUE TELEPHONE

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This is a Western Electric B1 telephone. My dad worked for the telephone company since he was a young man. He retired about 20 years ago. He collected a few phones over the years. This being one of them. I will do my best to describe it and I have taken several photos both inside and out to give you an idea of the condition of the phone. I am not a collector, but it appears to be in very good condition in my opinion. The paint looks original and in good condition, for its age. It appears to be complete and original. It is missing the cord as you can see from the photos. The back of the base is marked "WESTERN ELECTRIC MADE IN U S A PAT IN U S A SEPT 16 24 PATS APP FOR" The back side of the dial is marked "WESTERN ELECTRIC MADE IN U S A PAT IN U S A AUG 13 12 AUG 24 15 DES MAY 7 18 SEPT 13 21" The back of the neck of the base is stamped "B1" The receiver is marked "TRADE MARK Western Electric REG US PAT OFF E1 MADE IN U S A" The dial is a 2Hb. This telephone is being sold as is. I looked up some of the history of this model on wikipedia, this is what I found: The Model 102 telephone (B1 mount/set) was Western Electric's first widely distributed telephone set to feature the transmitter and receiver in a common handset. Prior models had been of the "candlestick" type, which featured a transmitter fixed to the base, and a receiver held to the ear. The 102 was manufactured between 1927 and 1929.As early as 1890, Western Electric had been experimenting with single handset models, but 2 technical problems prevented them from being widely produced at that time. First, the transmitters of the day did not work well unless oriented in a vertical plane. If moved to other angles, as would be expected in a single handset, carbon granules in the transmitter would move around, resulting in poor voice quality, referred to as "carbon noise". [1 ]The second hurdle to a common handset model was that audio from the receiver, known as sidetone , would be picked up by the transmitter and amplified, resulting in a squealing noise fed back through the receiver (acoustic feedback). This problem was made worse by the signal boosting circuitry used in the subset which resulted in a much stronger signal at the receiver, as well as the hollow handsets which provided an internal channel for the audio to reach the transmitter. [ 2] In the 1920s, developments in anti-sidetone circuitry and non-positional transmitters (which would work in any orientation) led Western Electric to move forward with developing a handset model which would be free of both of these problems. The result was the E1 handset, which was ready for mass production in 1927. This handset was paired with the A-Type base, essentially a cut-down candlestick with a cradle for the handset, and released in a limited capacity as Western Electric's first handset subscriber set, the Model A1 .Although the E1 handset was built to accommodate the anti-sidetone circuitry, such circuitry was still not ready by the time the E1/A desk set was ready. However, the solid bakelite construction of the handset suppressed the sidetone feedback to acceptable levels. [ 3] As work continued on the anti-sidetone circuitry, a new base was produced for the E1 handset to replace the cut-down candlestick, and to allow mass production of the set. The new base was designated B1, and was similar in appearance to the A base, but with more flowing lines and a shell cast as one piece.I hope I have described the telephone accurately. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have and I will try to answer them for you. Thanks for looking at my auction. The telephone will be packed securely and shipped with insurance. I prefer not to ship internationally. read more

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