[ct92404]

Hi all,

I realize this is a European website and people here might not be too familiar with antique American telephones. But I've had a lot of help here with other projects, so I thought someone might be able to give me some advice.

I recently bought an antique wooden telephone. It doesn't have a dial and uses a crank generator and a battery. It's in really good condition, and all the parts and original wiring seem to be intact. (It even came with an original vintage "dry cell" battery!) Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find much information about it. I found a company name on the handset - "Kellogg Switchboard And Supply Company." But so far, that's all I know. I haven't been able to figure out a model number or when it was made. Based on some pictures I've seen online of similar phones, I THINK it was made around the early 1930's.

I took out the generator ("magneto"?) to clean it and then put it back in and reconnected it. But I'm not sure if I connected one of the wires right. There are 3 screw terminals where wires can be connected. The lower terminal with red wires was easy, but there is another green wire that is supposed to be connected to one of the other two brass terminals. I'm attaching a picture of the connection, which I hope will show up clearly. When I crank the magneto, the bell on the phone rings. I don't know whether it's supposed to do that, or if it means that I connected the wire wrong on the magneto. (I would think that only a receiving telephone should ring when you turn the crank to make an outgoing call). I don't know anything about how these telephones worked. Actually, I don't really know much about how phones work in general!

Then a couple of days ago, I got really lucky and found another antique wooden phone! I'm pretty sure they're the same model. The cabinet and internal parts looks identical. But someone has really messed with the 2nd one. They changed the handset and rewired it at some point, apparently to try to make it work with the modern telephone system. My plan is to fix it and put the wiring back to the original condition. I think it would be cool to hook up the phones together to be able to talk from one to the other, if that's possible.

I'm also attaching a picture of the inside of the 2nd phone. You can see where original wires have been disconnected and extra wires where other parts had been added at some point to try to make the phone work with a modern phone network. I took out the extra parts, but some of the wiring is still there.

So my questions are:

- Around what time period would these phones have been made?

- Is the bell supposed to ring when I turn the crank, or did I maybe hook up the magneto wrong?

- Is it possible for the 2nd phone to work with that modified handset but otherwise using the original parts? I do want to replace it with the "correct" vintage one later, but I just want to see if I can get both phones to transmit to each other.

I'm sorry this post is so long! But I really appreciate any help anyone can offer!

- Chris