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The Telephone on P. E. I. - Telephone Accessories
Member: Telephone Collector's International
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One of a collector's greatest pleasures is when they find a large number of vintage phones at a bargain price. Occasions such as this are few and far between. Below, you will see two such finds. The rest of this page will show a number of miscellaneous phone related items..
Phones by the Truckload!
Occasionally, one will make finds like this when collecting phones! Some time ago, we made a wonderful find of phones and KSU's. Jeffery displayed them in our truck, so that this photo could be taken.
Most of these phones are multi-line business phones, 564's, 565's, 2565, Logic 10's, and two interesting 554's (normal 500 series wall phone) mounted on a backboard, with a 6041QAA key unit mounted underneath, and wired so that they will function as multi-line phones. One of the 565's has a fairly scarce G8 amplified handset designed for noisy locations. It has a receiver amplifier and push-to-listen switch, which decreases transmitter output and increases receiver output when depressed to counter noise.
In the front row, Uniphone #6, Dawn phone, Doodle phone, 500 set with G6 amplified headset. Two KSU's shown in back row, an NE QUJ9B shown back right, and a QUJ10A shown (partly hidden) back left. All phones are Northern Electric/Telecom.
Another Find: This is another nice find. There were 19 Northern Electric/Telecom phones in this batch, and after culling and cleaning, there were 16 added to the collection plus 3 phones to be used for parts, due to case cracks, bad or missing handsets, etc.
Included here:
2 Dark Brown, 2 Yellow (one an interesting yellow/black hyrid), 1 Pink or darker Beige, 3 White, 2 Beige, 2 Moss Green, and 4 BlackAll have been cleaned up and bagged as shows from the photograph. Sorry, but I didn't think to take the photo till they were all protected in plastic. A couple shown still need replacement handset cords. The Brown phone in the upper right is actually a 2554. All others, including the brown one in the second row from the bottom are 554's. Included in the batch were 6 NE228A4 modular conversion back plates.
These aren't rare phones, all dating from the 60's to late 70's, but in this quantity and at the very reasonable price I paid for them, it was a great find.
1928 P.E.I. Telephone System Directory 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967 IslandTel Directories 
These items were all found on a 2004 collecting trip:
The 1928 Directory shown above has been transcribed and is on-line. At the time of the 1960's books above, the Rural exchanges were still magneto lines with coded ringing numbers listed. The major towns were dial exchanges by this time.
Along with this lot of items, a number of Northern Electric Number 6 dry cells (similar to the Blue Bell battery shown below) were also found.
Northern Electric 554 A/B Wall Phone with Beige NE G-6 Amplified Handset.
RCA MI-22156 Marine Phone
This is an early RCA (Canada) MI-22156 sound powered ship telephone. These were used for internal communication on board the vessel.
Unlike early magneto home telephones, these used an MI-22151-E sound powered handset which eliminated the need for talk batteries. The handset snaps in place into its hangers so that rolling of the ship in waves can't knock the handset off. To call on this phone, one would remove the receiver from its rugged holder, then crank the magneto on the right hand side. This telephone is well sealed to prevent damage by moisture and salt.
Telephone Ephemera: Many telephone collectors also collect advertising ephemera that was designed to be mounted on, or used with your phone. This device is an example of this. It was designed to be mounted to the dial of your Northern Electric 500 or 554 phone to constantly remind you of the services of the Island's more noted taxi services, Ed's Taxi, which was run by Edgar F. Acorn. This dates back to the 70's when dial phones still were in exclusive use. It is moulded in a thermoplastic and is NOS (New Old Stock, never used). The original plastic bag is still with it, marked, "GLOWS - To apply to your telephone dial, peel off adhesive backing and press on actual telephone dial." Other items of this type of collectable include advertising pen holders, paper holders, and shoulder rests designed to mount on your phone, as well as various stickers, all carrying the advertiser's business information.
These pins given to me recently by a former employee of Island Tel..
Left: Five Year Service Pin
Right: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers pin.
Below: Special issue of Stamps commemorating the 100th anniv. of the invention of the telephone issued to telecommunication workers in 1974. Click image to view larger.
Public Telephone payphone sign recently purchased. This type of sign was mounted above or near the location of payphones. Size approximately 11 ½ x 13 inches
"Blue Bell Battery" In the early days of telephones, the "Talk Power" was provided by batteries at each telephone installation (local battery). Later, common battery exchanges in cities eliminated this, but local battery remained common till the 60's and 70's in rural areas. This battery power was provided by 2 or 3 - 6 inch x 2 1/2 inch dia. dry cells. This is a photo of an original "Western Electric Blue Bell Dry Cell for Telephone Service", Western Electric designator KS 6542 - a #6 dry cell. I have two of these which came from a lady in South Dakota who found them in her attic while renovating an old home. They are in great shape, no doubt nicely dried up and preserved by the heat of the attic. I also have found several Northern Electric cells - they were the same shape, voltage, etc., but were beige/grey with blue print, a plainer looking label than the Blue Bell. These all no longer carry a charge, of course.
The old tall dry cells like these that magneto sets used (No. 6 - 1.5 volt), can no longer be purchased, but you still have a couple of options for powering these phones: A) use a dual D cell battery holder, wire it in series if not already wired that way - the disadvantage of this is short battery life; and B) Use a cell phone charger. Normal wall warts exhibit too much AC hum. Late model compact cell chargers exhibit little or no hum, and work great. You do need to find one in the voltage rage of 3 to 5 volts DC. I have found that two Motorola models do an excellent job, the SPN5185A (5 v), and the SPN4278D (4.4 v). This is by no means an advertisement for Motorola, but these are two I do find perform well. One charger per phone should be used. The original cord ends will have to be removed, and spade lugs should be soldered to the leads. These can be found on eBay for a reasonable cost
A source of the replacement alkaline version of the #6 dry cells has been found, the Everready EN-6. These may be ordered from Schultz Communications On-Line at http://store.phonetx.com/36-2500n.html.
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Protector/Demarcation Point Modern telephone installations in Canada require that a demarcation point be located where the telephone service enters the home. This device allows you to isolate your internal phone lines from the line, and gives you a convenient place to plug in a test phone to determine whether problems are originating from within the home, or from the line.
Many demarcation boxes are designed to mount after the entrance protector, and mount inside the home. The box shown replaces the entrance protector, containing both an entrance protector and a demarcation point within a single weatherproof box designed for mounting outside the home, replacing the traditional entrance protector. This is often called a Network Interface Device, or NID. The grey cover on the left opens for access by the telephone company to the line protectors, one for each incoming line - this is where the lines on the telephone company's side enter. To the right, you will note the homeowner's connection points. This box comes with 4 line units, two more can be added. This is where the wiring to the home circuits can be attached. If a problem is suspected, each line can be unplugged at the jacks shown, and a phone can be plugged in to determine if the problem is within the home wiring or if it originates on the telephone company's line.
NT-E1A-49 Ringer This is an external ringer which may be used with early Princess phones or Pay Phones without a ringer, and as an extension ringer. The early (model 701) Princess phones were designed with no ringer, and used these ringers mounted on the baseboard. This ringer contains only a ringer and a capacitor - the network is located inside the phone attached.
634-A/685-A Subsets There are many other forms of ringers available, including those designed for using with desk stands (gutless telephones, such as these two WE-211's.) These ringers contain not only the ringer, but also include the network. This style of ringer/subset includes the 634-A subset and the later 685-A subset shown here between two 211's.
Northern Electric N515H Subset This is an example of one of the many different subsets used for phones in magneto service. In addition to containing the bell and network components, they also contained the magneto for signalling the operator. These were available in types designed both for local and common battery configurations. This subset came mated to one of my Uniphone stands.
More Coming Soon... Stay tuned!
