Anyone collect other electro-mechanical/electronic items?

[captainmoody]

I collect and repair vintage/modern time clocks as well as vintage 1A2/Merlin phone equipment! Add that to the vintage televisions and washers/dryers and you end up with a very full basement!

 

[petek]

Neat stuff...at the same place I was talking about the Kenmore twinnie in the other thread I'm pretty sure I saw an old punch clock or time stamper like some of those in your pic. There's also an interesting old GE Cardiogram machine..about the same size as a small suitcase, with handle, weighs a ton. If you're ever up Pt Huron/Sarnia way let me know and I'll show you where the place is.

 

[captainmoody]

Sounds like you need to get some pictures of that junkyard/second hand store! Something tells me you will uncover some more treasures there

 

[58limited]

Hi Captainmoody. I have the same time clock as the black one to the left in your photo at my clinic. It is blue and we still use it. Had to replace the motor a few years back, and we ordered a spare motor in case it goes out in another 25 years or so. It is a good reliable time clock.

 

[gansky1]

Merlin phones! I loved those when they came out - so sleek and modern, a big departure from the mechanical phones with banks of sqaure, lighted buttons and bell ringers. So very computer age!

 

[captainmoody]

Here is a pic of one of the Merlin phones on my system. They are great old workhorses, second only to my 1A2 Bell System Western Electric stuff.

 

[captainmoody]

I have been collecting radios and phones since I was 7, that's 36 years now! and have many more stored away in boxes, thanks to a neighbor that worked for the phone company Here are a few other phones as well. My favorites are the 302 desk phone from 1940, and the Green 10 button 1500 touch tone desk set from 1967. I actually use these and rotate them on a regular basis. Nothing like genuine Bell System Western Electric phones!

 

[Cybrvanr]

nice setup! I've got a Merlin phone system that came out of my office when we upgraded. I want to install it in my house. I have 2 BIS34D phones, and LOTS of BIS10's along with the KSU

 

[fnelson487]

How About Rotory Calculators?

I collect a number of things including IBM typewriters, vintage rotary calculators and the best of all, a 556 WE cord switchboard that works! Here is the Friden calculator that I bought restored from a former technician in Wisconsin. You need to know someone who works on these to keep them going. This is a visual and auditory treat to hear running with the spinning numbers and moving carriage!

 

[fnelson487]

Here is a Shot of the Switchboard

It works! I have the manual circuits hooked up to some vintage phones. On my to-do list is to get a manual circuit hooked up to a phone in each room of the house. I have two trunk lines to the CO. That's Terry Lattz manning the switchboard during one of the Vacuum gatherings. He is listening in on a conversation!

 

[fnelson487]

And One Last One

The IBM Personal Selectric!

 

[captainmoody]

Oh Wow! Love the switchboard! You have some cool stuff there. I have an old IBM selectric from 1972, and an Executive from 1962. Forgot all about them, they used to be in my fathers office.

 

[fnelson487]

IBM Executives

I had a Model C Executive. What a pain in the a$$ to get the spacing right. I am on the look-out for a regular Model C. What a machine!

 

[nurdlinger]

Captainmoody...

The only place in my life I ever saw 10-button touch-tone phones (and in that same green color) was at Michigan State University in the early 70s. Might yours have been boosted from there?

 

[kenmore58]

You think typing on an IBM Executive was a pain, try teaching the proportional spacing -- NOT EASY, but fun!! My students never could seem to get the hang of it. Thank God, it was on its way out when I was teaching it.

Ron

 

[jamman_98]

IBM Seletric

When I was in high school in 1978, our buisness class got all new blue IBM selectric typewriters. They replaced our Royal typewriters that had the carrage return. Some of those were so beaten up that when you pushed the carrage back it flew across the room!!. The IBM was a nice typewriter.

Joe
jamman_98

 

[jasonl]

Moody, do you still have that 1972 RCA CTC-48, my dream TV?

 

[tomturbomatic]

Seeing the phones of my childhood reminded me of the remodeling and house-flipping shows on HGTV. When these young people walk into an older home, they always wonder what the niche in the wall of the hallway was for. I want to yell to them: THE PHONE and PHONE BOOK. Many people today are not familiar with the time when a home had one phone, when rooms were not wired for phones when the house was built, before the wall phone in the kitchen and the phone on the nightstand beside the bed were common. The phone company used to have full page ads in most of the magazines in the 50s and early 60s that showed the convenience of phones in multiple locations and in colors. Some homes did not have the wall niche for the phone and they had those little benches where the phone sat on a small table top on one side with the directory under it and the other half of the thing was a seat; literally a conversation piece.

 

[pdub]

I've got the same

Western Electric switchboard, along with a medium sized phone collection and a complete Merlin system wired into my home professionally.