Posted 14 years ago
busterhat
(1 item)
The reason I'm on here is to find out something about this phone. I can't find anything on it. I've seen a field phone by Western Electric but not Automatic Electric. Maybe someone can give me some information on this phone.
Thanks,
hey bhusterhat. just found the site. What you have is a phone used mostly by railroaders in the early days but they were used all the way into the late 70's. How it works is you hook two wires up to a special telephone pole along the line and then crank it to dial up the dispatcher for train orders, etc. It has battery back-up also. I have one that's in about the same shape as yours. They are pretty rare these days. I hope you come back to check this site for comments as I could write about it all day. But that's the gist of it. hope it helps. Yours, Tom.
I recently purchased one of these Automatic Electric Portable Monophone with webbing shoulder strap. It has the following lettering numbers on the phone in 3 different places: L7036-A5, D-78911-A, and D-780575A. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone can give me a history of this portable phone. I have been told that it was the forerunner of the field telephone used in World War II. Is there a way to tell what year mine was manufactured using the above numbers? Thanks in advance.
I can't help identify it/them, at least not yet (?) but seeing this post now 10yrs on makes me remember I've got a similar wooden case and strap somewhere that I've never known what used to belong inside of -- gotta go find that thing, maybe it was a "field telephone"?! (if so, it'd certainly fit right into my collections?!! <lol>)