Butter stamp telephone receiver/transmitter
 

One sold recently for just over £300.

Butter stamp telephone receivers were named thus because they resembled the old butter stamps used to stamp patterns in butter pats.

Dates back to first Graham Bell receivers, late 1800's

Re: Butter stamp telephone receiver/transmitter
 

Any picture of it?

Presumably rare and/or early since every candlestick phone would have had one.

Re: Butter stamp telephone receiver/transmitter
 

https://www.google.com/search?q=Butt...w=1280&bih=870. Not sure they were ever used by the GPO.

Re: Butter stamp telephone receiver/transmitter
 

Candlestick telephones used a Bell receiver 1A (named after he) but some of the earlier ones belonging to pre-GPO instruments may have used a 'butter stamp' rec. variant.

But even the Bell receivers are worth a bob or two. Back in '82-ish I bought one at the Leeds radio rally, NOS, in a polythene bag, complete with desiccant and the phaeon arrow mark on the paper slip for 40p. I sold it on eBay about ten years ago for £36.

I wish I'd bought twenty!

Re: Butter stamp telephone receiver/transmitter
 

Hmmmm..... looks like the term is more specific to a type of polished wood receiver than just the general shape of that kind of receiver. You live and learn.

They do have a certain amount of "Je ne sais quoi" about them.

Re: Butter stamp telephone receiver/transmitter
 

You could always make one. :) There are plans on how to in J. W. Sims' 'The Boy Electrician' 1951 edition.

Re: Butter stamp telephone receiver/transmitter
 

At first two identical Butter stamp phones were used together.
One was held to the ear as receiver and the other one was spoken into as the transmitter.

Not sure when the transmitter became a fixture on the wall.

Re: Butter stamp telephone receiver/transmitter
 

In very early days, it was possible to use a single unit as those who were likely to have a telephone were used to using 'speaking tubes' that many Victorian houses were fitted with to call 'Jeeves - more gin please!' .

I remember seeing the remnants of one in a house in Crewe back in the early 1980's. Each end of the flexible tube had a whistle plugged in. To call you pulled the whistle out and blew which sounded the whistle at the other end. Obviously you had to move the tube backwards and forwards from mouth to ear -- hence moving a 'Bell' receiver wasn't much difference.

The wooden ones were the very early ones. Later ones were Gutta Percha - a form of hardened rubber. See attached drawing of 'Graham Bell's Hand Telephone' taken from 'The Home Teacher - a Cyclopedia of Self Instruction' published in 1880. I'm lucky enough to have one of these 'telephones' - see attached photos - which mentions that it was 'Patented 9th December 1876'. That was Graham Bell's UK patent date. I acquired it after standing outside the back door to the Science Museum by the rubbish bins for many years until - whoopie! - they threw out the telephone I was looking for. It was originally marked as being 'acquired' in 1911!

Now back to my Raspberry Pi phone system with 250+ lines working off it! How times have changed!!

Ian J