The Telephone 

That subset was made by Northern Electric (Nortel) in Canada. NE was the manufacturing and supply arm for Bell Canada. It is identical to the WE unit. I spent nearly 3 decades working with Nortel PBX's in the US. I have 3 candlesticks, one with a rotary dial and even a NE 3 slot payphone! I went from manual switchboards, to digital logic to fully programmable phone systems and finally to VoIP in my career.

In Norway there's a derivative of the "operator" still in service. You can call the service, a human will pick up, and they will transfer you just like an operator. They are also helpful if you need to find something on a map, or even with recipes for waffles (although recipes are not part of their advertised service).

0:32 I was expecting him to ask if you wanted to extend your car's warranty

As a child in the late 50's-early 60's we had a "party line" and the bell ringing pattern determined if you answered or not

What a glorious tone on that bell! So much better than the ghastly tone ringers we have now.

A friend of mine mounted a brass bell from an old Western Electric ringer on his bicycle handlebar. Sweet tone, long sustain, so much nicer than the typical aluminum bicycle bell.

The old Petticoat Junction tv series and the Green Acres series along with The Beverly Hillbillies all featured that magical telephone transition period where the older technology was still being used in the rural locations while the bigger cities had already made the change to more modern phone systems. It was still common practice when I was a kid in the 60's to dial 0 for an operator just to ask her the time so we could set the clocks after a power outage. All the pay phones still used operators even through the 70's. We even still had party lines in the 60's.

My grandma worked as a switchboard operator at Televerket. She had constant headache from the heavy head set. Many years ago I showed her my light weight headphones (not even ear plugs back then). She started to cry.

Love the old Western Electric equipment - that stuff was built to last forever

My career in telecom saw me through from manual boards to electronic exchanges, and the introduction of mobile phones, fibre links and more. Great times, and interesting to note the incentive for automatic exchanges was the competition between funeral directors!

One ringy-dingy... two ringy-dingy... three ringy-dingy...

"One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy . . . Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?"

I grew up in a small town in the '60s. We only dialed four numbers to speap to our local friends when we were old enough to use the phone. A couple years ago i finally disconnected my landline service. Nominally I kept it that long only for my alarm system which no longer really needed the landline connection. This year I gave away my late '30s rotary phone. AT&T was once a monopoly so powerful, more so than Google, Facebook, and Twitter together, that the government felt compelled to break it up. That move spawned an era of creativity. Two generations later the landline network is all but useless in most places. Funny how that goes.

As a Swede I'm proud of LM Ericsson's contributions to telephone design: the handset and the Ericofon or Kobra. We have a late version of the Kobra with buttons instead of a rotary dial. Beautiful.

Fran has a landline!!!! I haven’t had a landline since 2002! Memories 😎

Still got my 1939 made Ericsson wooden phone, and it still works, though it no longer is connected to a land line any more. mostly still original parts, though at some point in the 1960's it had some repairs from the phone company, replacing original capacitors with 1950's era ones. Original handset, original interior wiring, though I suspect the handle cord is from that 1960's repair, but it is a DCC cord still. Just had to convert from local battery to line operated, and no dial, as it was originally used on a farm party line, so has the crank handle and 90VAC ring generator. Another is a 1970's era railway phone, also with a crank handle, used to communicate down the train lines from station to station. Line powered, and is a special made version of the common Erica phone, that was the staple of the then telephone division of the General Post Office.

Keeping the past alive, very nice Fran. People under forty have probably never seen a candlestick phone except in magazines or in museums. A fun bit of knowledge, thanks and stay safe!

We had an operator based system in rural Easy Texas until the mid 60's. Dad scrounged up a Western electric dial telephone and a wall mount magneto and built a special desk for the phone. The crank for the magneto came up through the surface of the desk. There was a small wooden box under the desk He also ran the phone wire all the way from the house to the phone office about five miles away. He ran a single exposed galvanized steel wire with ceramic insulators nailed to wood cross arms on the poles.

One of the old 3-slot payphones I have originally had a separate earpiece and microphone before my acquisition . There's a plate on the front of the phone where the microphone had been mounted. The separate parts were replaced with an 'F' style handset.

The operators used to be able to do a lot of more modern functions, like answerphone (take a message from caller if called party doesn't answer), call forwarding (someone at called number advises the desired person is somewhere else, operator connects call to that place), call diversion (person tells the operator they will be over at someon's place until 22:00, operator diverts incoming calls to someone's place), baby-minding (person leaves phone off-hook, goes out, operator plugs in periodically to check if baby is crying).

Hi Fran. I don't know if you ever watched "The Secret Life of Machines" by the wonderful Tim Hunkin (commissioned by UK's Channel 4 in the 90s) but there was an episode on the telephone.

These telephones are using ‘local battery’ as power source. Modern telephones get the power from the exchange. The local batteries are 2 or more quite big, like a 1L water bottle, batteries. When a connection with is made with another telephone there is no other equipment, except the wires, between them. Depending on the quality of the mouth and earpiece, the telephone had a range/distance. Like 400km or more. The construction of the mouthpiece was protected with patents.

My dad worked for Southwestern bell and our county was slow to switch over to DTMF. There were a couple times he took me to the exchanges where the Strowger switches were. It was an awful amount of noise, but it was also the coolest thing I had ever seen.

I have 2 wall mounted ones with the crank generators on them . One in the kitchen and one in the basement . When the wife wants to talk to me while I'm in my ham room she can always get a hold of me . She's not into radio but loves the phone !

When he told me what my number was I got a ding-a-ling ... All my landlines in my house are Bakelite rotary phones, I don't know how they still work, visitors are amazed.

My cell phone sounds exactly like your phone Fran. Your phone has excellent tone!👍 The farthest back I can remember with using the phone .I was a kid in the 70s. We had a party line with about 8-9 people that shared our line. People would call, let it ring the amount of times for who they were trying to get 1 - 9 rings.( we were #3.) They would then hang up & call back in about 20 seconds. You were supposed to answer if you were home and hope that no one would listen in on your phone call. If I remember right, There wad always a punk kid down the road that would listen in on everyone's conversations. We always had to call the operator to make a long-distance phone call or if we were making a "collect call". Sometimes long-distance would be anything over 2 miles in One Direction , but in the opposite direction, local calls could reach out for 20 mi. or more. As time went on into the 80s and things got more advanced, there was a phone number you could even call to find out the time and temperature.

In 1976 some country towns still had manual operator exchanges. I rang one to speak to someone and I was told she would still be at work and was transferred to her work location.

For ages I had a rotary dial GPO Trimphone (Tone Ringer Illuminated Phone) from about 1967 that had belonged to my parents. This did not have a bell but an electronic warbler. The dial was illuminated by a sealed glass tube lined with phosphor and filled with tritium gas. When I finally sold the phone in 2008 the dial illumination wasn't very bright due to the radioactive half life of the tritium being only 12.3 years.

I started doing electronics in the late 70's as a teen and I had an old rotary phone in my collections of various electrical/electronic devices. From looking at pictures now I think it might have been from the 50's. My memory might be faulty though and it might have been more modern. Sadly I do not have it anymore, I do not remember getting rid of it but we/I moved 5 times since that time. I agree that smart phones aren't really phones, I mostly use mine as a pocket ebook reader. I got rid of the land line about 10 to 15 years ago.

Interesting story. My Grandmother worked as a long distance operator back around the time that phone was made. I heard all her stories about her "girls" working at night. I don't have any real interesting phone gear but still have a rotary wall phone in my shop because I can actually hear it ringing over the racket.

A gentleman that frequented my tavern told me the story of him and his brother working in their father's scrapyard during the hot Iowa summers when they were kids. The local Dyersville phone company had modernized the phones to dials and their father had bought all the old phones to salvage for scrap. He said they had a small mountain of old wooden crank operated phones. Him and his brother worked all summer outside in the heat busting those phones apart with sledge hammers to separate the metal from the wood. Here we were in the 80's wondering what that pile of phones would be worth to the antique collectors had they not all have been smashed for a few pennies each.

I had an old candlestick but it had a rotary dial. I converted it to touch tone. It was a valid phone to this day but I sold it. Great phone

I have about 8 or 9 rotary dial phones from the 50's and 60's that I loved using and I really liked the bell ring that was very loud. However about 10 years ago I was having so many problems with the land line...every 2 weeks I was losing service, that I dropped the land line. AT & T really sucks.

Nice ! i was wondering' why they did the click thing ! 🤟 and the wind up thing too Green Acres - Petticoat Junction : )

Yay phones! I keep mine going for fun. They just don't stop working. Love the sound quality and true full duplex.

Fran, if it's not off-topic, how about a few minutes on the two bells; particularly, their pitch and if there's any "story" to the selection of the bell tones.

It's strange that I coincidentally picked up a 1913 Western electric wall phone today just by accident and when I got home this video was posted. 🤔 also my mom was a telephone operator in the 1950s.

Not that old, but I still have an old rotary dial phone in my basement from probably the late 1950s-early 1960s. It came with the house. I'm clinging to my old landline, though I have a modern smartphone of course, and with Google Voice and Teams installed, I have the option of calling from 3 different lines and numbers on it. But it is satisfying to use that old basement phone. The audio quality is excellent, and it's cool that my combo cable modem/VOIP device still supports rotary dialing such that I can make outgoing calls on that old rotary dial phone without doing anything special. It's heavy and built like a tank, and you could use the receiver to subdue an intruder before calling for help on the same phone, which would survive unscathed.

loved the sound of the real bells

I have been fascinated with old telephones since I was a kid (in the 1970s-80s). I studied old TV shows and movies for old phones (also the kitchen appliances, furniture, old radios, TV sets, and automobiles which also interest me) and I have since collected most of the phone models I saw back then and wanted to own. Since I no longer have home phone service, my next project is to obtain the bluetooth gateway that will allow me to use the old phone via my cell phone and get all the old phones in working order again. Great video!

Nice Xanadu shirt! Watched that movie two months ago. Love Olivia Newton-John and happy to see Gene Kelly adding his vibes to the story.

Hi Fran, interested that you said original wires had asbestos in them. Here in the UK the wires and cords were covered in cotton and silk. The individual wires were covered in mercerised cotton as this was more flexible and took the colour dye better.

I remember taking one of these apart as a kid and using the ear piece for a crystal radio or something.

My mother used to work as a switchboard operator when she was very young, in Vermont, at a "larger" hotel, Hotel Vermont in Burlington, and for the phone company, AT&T, at a regional and local level, sometime in the early 1950s. I still have one of the local phone directories with hand written additions and corrections for the town in which we were both born. Very cool.

The original 'Ring Tone'; boy that brings back memories.

We had an operator until the end of the 1960's Large box-style phones with a handle on the side. Later got replaced with desktop phones with a flip-handle instead of the rotary dial to generate the AC to call the operator. After exchanges got automated, we used the phones as intercom, because you can just connect two phones back to back; when you turn the handle the other phones ring. Each phone need a local battery to power the carbon microphone. Even the newsreader on TV had one to communicate with the control room if everything else failed. They were in use 10-20 years after automation was installed.

Nice, we still have a little metal Bell System box on the side of our probably around 90 year old building. It says 305A

Re: Flight School 14:00 Instructor: " sorry Fran you still lack instrument rating " Fran: procedes to remove every instrument from airplane and tear them down at the bench then assess a rating to each one

That display is much more readable now.

I remember when people used to complain that when they called someone they were told that they could not be heard because they were very quiet. The remedy..........take out the carbon granule microphone and bang it on the desk to loosen up the granules!

A few years ago I was visiting the old Marconi site in Cornwall, and while standing at the tiny old building with the original trans-atlantic cable terminal connections, I was struck by the irony that after all the years of progress I couldn't get a damned signal on my phone.

The good all days when open wire and 10 party lines were the norm. Going to the swimming hole in the summertime fishing riding bikes building tree houses. Picking up pop bottles turning them in for candy. $0.25 to go to the matinee at the locals movie theater.

Lesson 1. Always watch a Fran video until the very end. 😂👍

35 years old, born in the mid-1980s, technically a Millennial I guess. I remember when I was the one being told to get off other folks lawns! Heh. Now I'm telling "back in my day" stories like a creaky old guy. I guess I *am* one now, at least to some. "Time hurries on/And the leaves that are green/Turn to brown" -- how true you always have been, Sirs Simon and Garfunkel. I still remember the mustard yellow rotary phone that hung on the wall of my parents' dining room. Some variant of Western Electric Model 500, made by a copycat company doing business in the upper American South. Probably Southern Bell back then... eventually it was Sprint, and now it is CenturyLink -- known well in these parts for being brazen fraudsters and not even trying to cover it up, really, they know what they do and they know they'll get away with it. /shrug I suppose somethin'll get them in the end -- we all know the the word that starts with a "b" that's used to describe karma, after all, and many stories of why it's a well-earned description ;) and besides -- all things end. But, to me, *that* is a real phone, as are all rotary phones, in kind of the same sense that this 'candlestick' model is for Fran. I *get* it. When I was growing up, computers were very different. My first PC was a 386 box that ran Windows 3.1 -- I still have it. It has nearly the same specs (the original motherboard, sadly, is long gone, victim of a Varta battery melting holes in its motherboard as they all-too-often do -- Adrian Black of "Adrian's Digital Basement" here on YT does not preach about such old NiCd batteries for nothing!) and a few upgrades, although if I can ever trace down the original motherboard -- a rare variant of a common board -- I'll restore it to exact original as best I can. I have other old computers, too -- a PSION Organizer II, the first commercially successful PDA and a full-on handheld 8bit computer, essentially as old as I am; a working Commodore 64 (if you have one that doesn't work, don't bin it or Pi it, go visit "Adrian's Digital Basement", his "repair-a-thon" videos are AMAZING resources on getting them working -- you will need a basic knowledge of electronics, for which BigCliveDotCom's channel is very good at providing) and a few others of that era. It's a whole different world from the sorts of machines we have nowadays, even ones that don't fit in your pocket! ...which really is what a smartphone is. It's a modern PSION, a handheld pocket PC. Sure, the PSION couldn't make phone calls and was a LOT less capable, but that was 1986. I suppose, back in roughly that era, if you took something like an Ampro LittleBoard, which strapped to the back of a 5.25" floppy drive, back in the day, and ran -- well, depending on what version you had, either CP/M on a Z80, or MS-DOS on an 80186 (!!), a 286, or a 386 CPU, with a minimal system around it -- and threw that in a box with whatever you could manage to attach and enough battery to run it all, along with some sort of video converter to a Sony Watchman and a handwired miniature keyboard, you could work up a wearable PC -- and if you wired a serial or parallel-port modem between it and a Motorola DynaTAC you'd've had essentially the world's first "WWAN card" I guess. The PSION Organizer II came out in 1986... that was just a couple years after William Gibson first published "Neuromancer". "Blade Runner" -- funny how I now have to say, the first one, heh! -- had already been out for the length of a presidential term by then; it hit theaters in '82 -- a year or so, arguably, after a more foundational cyberpunk movie, 1981's "Escape from New York". 1981 was also the year that IBM released their Model 5150 Personal Computer aka the IBM PC -- the very first one. (Back then, what we now call "a PC" was typically simply called "a home computer" or "a home micro" -- referring to the term 'microcomputer', referencing earlier 'minicomputers' which were the size, generally, of a row of five-drawer filing cabinets, and 'mainframes' which were entire rooms if not buildings!) The first edition of "Shadowrun" landed in 1989... "The Secret of Monkey Island", as a bit of a benchmark, dropped in 1990 and "MYST", the first one, came out for PC in 1994, a year after its initial release for the Macintosh platform. It don't matter no more where you flew that glider, Snake Plisskin... it's been a looong way from Manhattan.

Such a sweet sound!

I have a wall-mounted, wooden box, Railway omnibus phone. They were used for Signal Boxes and the Signaller used a push button to tap out the code for the signal box he wished to speak to, eg: "- - . -" = Long, Long, Short, Long (similar to Morse), and although all the Signallers on the omnibus circuit received the same ring, only the one assigned to "- - . -" was supposed to pick up. (Often "ear-wiggers" would hear things said about themselves that they wouldn't like). I have it mounted at the end of the hallway and have the DC bell as our doorbell. It has a lovely tone.

I've always wondered why the receiver hook had holes in these (although I've seen some that didn't have holes).

I have one nearly like this, with subset and all, and the phone has a dial... beautiful instruments these are... and they don't make 'em like they used to... I use mine all the time.

Love the shirt Fran, loved the movie even more.

Brought a family memento... In Rio de Janeiro, long-distance equipment operated at Rua Alexandre Mackenzie, 69. My mother worked at the TELERJ company during the implementation of the automatic DDD system, they were dismissed en masse from operators after completing their work. DDD = Long distance service Brazil.

So it's obvious where "hang up" the phone comes from. Words we still use today.

Still have my Xanadu album. Album as in vinyl record. Absolute banger soundtrack. But expected since a lot of it was written by Jeff Lynne.

The form-factor of the candlestick phone is derived from the microphone's need to remain perpendicular to gravity to reduce noise from movement of the carbon grains. That's also why the other popular design from the era was the permanent wall mount model.

Great phone content Fran. That ringer sounds great! I half expected to see Neo from the Matrix to show up 🤣

That ringer sounds awesome. I would be mesmerised by it and have it ring out

I actually worked as a telephone switchboard operator when I was stationed in the Philippines. We actually had the old still patch panel, and we even had a magneto when we had to patch to a Philippine air base.

Compatiblity issues - If you think about it, last century's computers latterly had modems with pulse dialling option. So that made the computer compatible to technology patented in 1891 by mr. Strowger, the undertaker. That's a fair age gap and remaining compatible ! Probably one of the biggest - and certainly the biggest in the computing world ! Will USB still be compatible in 100 year's time ? Mr. Strowger wasn't the only undertaker in town. There was a rival firm - an it was the owner's wife that got the job as operator in the local tel ex - so every time a subscriber asked for the undertaker, Strowger missed out - so the ATE was his fix for the problem.

I've used candlestick phones! So great that you have one. Also much envy for the Zaxxon console!!!

For many years, there was a Western Electric plant near me in, Lee’s Summit, MO, now, it has been repurposed as a tech school.

Great video, Fran. I've read that women were preferred as operators, because men were often rude. I worked for many years as an operator at a large resort. A job I loved.

I miss POTS (Plain old Telephone System). We used to use it to connect tape players/recorders together and share music ideas. Also, we used it to operate/control CB radios from remote. In ham radio, we used it for phone patches. The 80's were fun. On another note, a friend and I transferred an Atari Basic program via CB radio. We are likely the only ones to ever do so. It was 100% successful.

I have a phone that needs restoring, wish I knew where to send it... Fran, I've seen bell boxes that had modern keypads hidden inside!

In the 80's, a friend showed me his wooden crank phone. He could use it to receive calls. I showed him how to dial with it. Could not believe how heavy the earpiece was!

The things about spamming the operator and lamp conversions brought history to life quite well. How little we've changed!

Love the phone. Love the video. And don't call me Shirley!

That phone is in fantastic shape. Thanks for sharing it!

"We would like to talk to you about extending the wa.." *CLUNK!*

Project idea: Install a cell phone module in it, together with some kind of SBC running a voice recognition algorithm to emulate the operator. You could call it the rPhone (for real phone, in contrast to the iPhone or imaginary phone).

In most of the US where one of the AT & T owned local operating companies provided service, Western Electric provided the candlesticks. In areas where there wasn't one of the Bell Telephone companies, Kellogg provided the phones. Most candlesticks were painted black. I believe my working candlestick is a Kellogg.

Too bad you don't have a period matching subset for that phone. Your phone is from 1915, yet it's connected to a 1974 subset. A 1915 model would be a large, wooden box, with black or brass ringer gongs on the outside. And they did make candlesticks with dials, just like they made both dialed and dial-less cradle phones. With a pulse to tone translator, easily concealed inside the subset, those sets would be usable on any modern landline. These phones became obsolete in 1935, with the introduction of the WE-302, with the ringer and network built into the desk set.

You mentioned direct dialing long distance. It was really annoying when shortly after direct dialing all across the country was finally implemented, the phone company was broken up. I returned from overseas just after that happened and tried to call my parents. It didn't work. An operator came on the line and asked what carrier I wanted. I had to play guessing games to make a long distance call rather than just dialing the number. Things have gone down hill after that. The phone company used to provide power for their equipment. This ensured that during a disaster that knocked out power, emergency communications would be accessible. Now the local power goes out, cell phone service is not available, voip service will be out (possible available if you pay extra to get the battery for a cable modem. Even then, the cable service will probably be out). Copper wire land line is not even available where I am living now.

Back in the day , an operator was the 911 of the era . As a little boy my mom told meto dial O and the nice lady would help me . And one day she did help me and I’ll never forget it.

12:34 A "Smart Phone" is not a Telephone. 100% agree. A Smart Phone is a Computer in your pocket. Also..Anyone that thinks their iPad/iPhone is not a computer is misinformed.

I have one that I use. I had to modify the bell box. Mine does have a dial built in. We were on a party line and called the operator. Dial phones came on line in 1967.

To complete your phone collection you might get a No 6 drycell, often called a telephone (or ignition) battery. These were used in areas where there was no power. When they were mostly depleted people would poke holes in them near the bottom and then sit them in a bowl of water and salammoniac. This would extend their useful lives. Yiu can get dummy cells or even replicas with a modern battery inside.

Ah the crank created an electric pulse, never realized that. Also I only miss the clarity of the old land lines. You could always hear the other person so well, not so much with smartphones, some days worse than others. Cranks and candlesticks were gone by the time I came along, except my grandparents had a nonworking crank on the wall still, that they did long and short cranks for local calls, so I was told. My other grandmother still had a party line, which was gone by 1980 when I was about 13. Everyone had those bell phones the phone company provided, which you got in solid black or white, and maybe yellow I think. It had a ringer volume on the bottom. But smartphones have so many advantages, so I don't miss them too much. That ring does create a slight nostalgic feeling though.

I was half expecting you to pull out a 90v oscillator to ring that bell. Neat you're able to use it as an actual telephone! I've never had a land line in my name. In 2001, when I was finally in a position to afford a phone, I went straight for cellular. Nationwide calling sans long distance was the major selling point. I'm still using that phone number though.

If we'd had one when I was a kid, I would've been fascinated about how the base can make the reflection of a hand look like a spider.

Hey Fran, We're about to loose our phones here in the UK. Land line connected phones will all die in 2025. The only way to make a phone call will using VOIP via the internet or with a mobile phone. Yes you can get adaptors ATA's etc but you will need to provide power for your equipment. That's both PSTN and ISDN.

I got one at a flea market that was sprayed pink. Seller let me have it for next to nothing. Stripped it and restored it to its proper black color. Upgraded the transmitter and receiver to the modern capsule variety,

"Operator/ oh won't you help me make this call..." Jim Croce

The candlestick phone was used for a good gag on the Andy Griffith show once. Barney Fife (Don Knotts) is standing there in the Sheriff's office with Andy there and I think some others. Barney is holding the stick in one hand and earpiece to his ear in the other. But he is holding down the receiver hook as he is pretending to be talking to a woman. Suddenly, to his embarrassment, the phone rings. Andy calmly says, "Barney, why don't you get it. You're closer."

I used to install these types of phone, back in the days of Strowger telephone exchanges. Yikes! how things have changed.

My mom was a supervisor of operators in about 1944 - she sat in a chair and had 20 - 30 women at a giant switchboard like in your picture.

Actually the magneto was not because of there not being electricity in rural areas. There were several systems, DC power for voice uses a central battery at the exchange, over short distances calling could use the exchange battery but for longer distances a higher voltage was needed It was simplicity to use a magneto, in fact until relatively recently the military still used magneto ringing on field telephones as their voice circuits used low voltage with local batteries in each phone, typically 3-6 volts. In the UK ringing voltage is 70 volts 25 Hz.

These are fairly rare in New Zealand. They were in the cities I believe because they had central battery exchanges there, but most telephone exchanges in the country were all magneto right up until they went to the Strowger automatic ones. I have also seen candlestick phones with a rotary dial in the base.

It would be funny if someone adapted perhaps a less collectable version of one of these in to a line level headphone/mic thing, seeing a DJ monitoring and doing talkovers on one of these would be great haha

That ringer sound is gorgeous

In my capacity as a splicer for the Company Formerly Known As Bell Telephone, I get to work on a little bit of everything. One day, I'll be working on a service order for a high bandwidth fiber KEGS circuit, the next I'll be using a breakdown set to find where a lead and paper underground cable installed in 1913 is getting wet. Meters have gotten more advanced (though I still use a 20 year old 3M 965DSP) but fault locating techniques on copper cable haven't changed all that much in the last century.

The script was still being written when shooting began on "Xanadu". ELO was perfect for the score. Love the t-shirt.