Why did they do that?
©2002 paulf. All rights reserved.| (What's this copyright
notice?) |
Someone cleverly took a perfectly good Leich handset, such as the one in the background, and decided it should be turned into a flashlight.
The receiver and receiver cap were replaced with a reflector, lens and bulb. The transmitter was replaced with metal mesh with a pushbutton. Low voltage DC was introduced through the coiled line cord -- either from a power supply for fixed operation or a battery for remote work.
Here's a perfectly good pink Western Electric 701B -- early model Princess phone, with an overdose of contact paper.
Someone spent a lot of time putting this on.
Bet it takes me less time to get it off!
Yup, it's a 20-series candlestick base that was guillotined and married to a camera mount. It's marked and has the cord hole in back. In case you're interested, the camera is a Kodak Bantam Special -- itself a Deco classic.
Makes you wonder where the top went...
At a different flea market a few weeks later this "Western Electric Desk Microphone" turned up. Fate works in strange ways!
A Classic Western Electric D1 cradle with F1 handset was updated to 50's splendor with this great paint job. They were thorough -- the dial center and fingerstop felt the brush.
What's worse than turning one classic phone into a lamp?
They really blasted everything -- a big hole through the handset for the rod that holds the bulb, removed the switchhook, removed the dial mechanism and hooked a switch up to the fingerwheel.
At least they mounted the handsets in opposite directions, so they can be used as a pair. And it is kind of cute to turn the dial to switch the light on and off.
Here's aWestern Electric #2 dial that was found with a damaged porcelain number plate.
It looks like some clever devil tried to cut a notch in it so
it would fit on a later #4 dial with "inside" fingerstop.
OUCH! Wish it had been
left alone!
How can we keep the notchers away from our phones?
Here is the back of a potentially valuable RED WE302 that's been hacked in back for a modular jack. At least in this case this was probably done after the corners were cracked.
Unfortunately they screwed the block on through the case and drilled a hole for the wires. They could have mounted it with foam tape and run the wires through the existing notch or under the case edge.
So close!
