Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles – Vintage Telephones
Those of us over a certain age will know that, until 1984, when the GPO (Post office telephones) monopoly was broken up, one did not actually own one’s telephone, but rented it from the GPO along with associated installations. Thus there was very little choice over the type of telephone one could have. Collecting these instruments now is a relatively inexpensive hobby, with most types being available for under £50, although as usual condition is crucial and if an example has been adapted for modern plug in use, then the price is enhanced. When I lived in my mews house in London in the late 1960s we had two lines – KNI[ghtsbridge] 1136 and 9226 – both equipped with rather sleek plastic ’phones in two-tone grey and plastic flexibly spiral cord. Yet when I got my first place in Derby, in Littleover, I inherited a hefty Bakelite job with a fabric coloured platted cord – much inferior to my way of thinking. This latter was a GPO type 332 introduced in 1937 (expect to pay between £20 and £80 depending on condition, but add £250-300 if originally supplied in cream). It had a ledge under the rest with a recess so you could carry it around – provided that you paid the GPO for an extra-long lead. In contrast, my London ’phones were (then) up-to-the-minute type 706 ones, which also had the option of a wall-mounted version, one of which we had. For these today expect to pay as low as £10 and up to £60, much depending on the colour. The letters on the dial were to enable one to dial London numbers: three letters (part of a name identifiable with a distinct area) plus four numbers a system converted to all number in 1970. Yet my earliest memories of telephones included various elderly relatives with ‘candle’ upright instruments, from which the earpiece hung from a metal bracket which opened and cut the line when the weight of the earpiece was removed or applied. The earliest of these were Bakelite and brass-mounted, called a type 150L dating from the early 1920s. Today, expect to pay £80-120 or double that if sold by a dealer. The ones I seem to recall were a later modification eliding the brass mounts, although they had the refinement of a silver-coloured metal dialling ring for London subscribers with one’s ’phone number printed on a disc in the middle and covered by a bit of clear plastic. These can fetch £120 to £150 at auction, and the bell set alone can cost £25-30. These evolved after a while into the more compact type 162 which had its own bell incorporated, now selling for similar prices. For the purist, the 1890s Ericson-made GPO phones – very antediluvian in appearance and predominantly brass – were around until after the Great War and can fetch several hundred pounds. Yet by the 1950s most of my friends and relatives had the first type of pre-war ’phone with a horizontally placed handset, set on a slim neck, again, so that it could be carted around, and called by collectors a ‘pyramid’ ’phone. This was a heavy-ish Bakelite instrument called a type 232L; again, it came with a dial-less version called a 232CB; both had a little drawer in the base in which to put one’s friend’s numbers. One was sold with a £80-120 estimate by Bamfords a year or two ago, although the pre-war ones (check base for approximate dating evidence) can make up to £225, and cream examples from £275, even more with bell set and drawer to base. They were introduced in the early 1930s and kept going into the 1950s, although the type 332 was a later improvement, which continued to be supplied for years after the war – likely to cost £50-80 now, but a cream one might go to £300. In darkest Herefordshire, the cousins with whom I lived after my mother died had a wall-mounted exchange with a handle on the side of its timber body which one had to crank to put callers through to the appropriate extension on the estate; this was in service until at least 1970. I saw a similar one on sale at a fair for £130 recently. By the time the writing was on the wall for the GPO monopoly, one could buy a variant of the type 706 (called a type 746: £35-60) which came in a dizzying variety of seven colours, or a type 756 which had a push-button dialling facility (£30-50). Indeed, the current craze in the 1970s was for the type 722 ‘Trimphone’, the first instrument to ring with a different sound to the then-familiar double ring: they produced a horrible chirruping noise, much imitated on TV gameshows. Rt. Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn (formerly 2nd Viscount Stansgate, briefly MP for Chesterfield and the then Postmaster-General) presented the first one to a subscriber in 1965, but it was not actually available until 1968. Incidentally, ‘Trimphone’ is an acronym: Tone Ringing Illuminated Model. These go for £30-40 nowadays, colour being important. There was also a lightweight version of the type 746 which looked more like the familiar US domestic ’phones of the era, but which never seems to have caught on – at least amongst those of my acquaintance but despite rarity, cheap to buy. Going back to the early days in the 1890s the telephones were subject to infinite slight variations, all of which came with a separate bell unit, usually attached to the wall nearby (a phenomenon which endured to some extent to around 1970), no dial and a crank attached to a magneto wherewith to raise the exchange. It was only when the type 150 came in that standardisation largely prevailed. There were also various later types with buttons on the top by the rest for business use, or for domestic premises with extensions, and larger, more complex office installations, too. All the types had wall-mounted variants, although the candlestick variant was
Derbyshire Antiques & Collectibles – Propelling Pencils
At various times over my boyhood, I received a propelling pencil for birthday or Christmas, which, of course, duly got lost at school or somehow broken. Most were plastic bodies and some had different coloured leads. My grandfather had a silver one boasting a dip-pen nib with a propelling pencil hidden beneath the nib’s curve, which could be moved out whilst the nib retracted. Mama, who was a serious bridge player, had a set of four with the suits in colour on the silver bodies and little coloured silky tassels, which lived in a powder blue box and came out when she and her friends sat down to play, along with the gin. Perhaps I should have kept mine, for most propelling pencils or mechanical pencils are collectible and some highly collectible. The modern pencil was born in 16th-century England, where, in Cumbria, a major deposit of graphite was found. The earliest pencils had square solid graphite cores. In 1795, a Frenchman named Nicholas Jacques Conté mixed powdered graphite with clay so that the material could be formed into rods that would be hardened by firing. This allowed pencil makers to vary the quality of the mark made by the rod—the greater the percentage of graphite to clay, the softer the rod and the darker the mark. It also enabled a new type of pencil to be invented in 1822. This was a ‘mechanical’ pencil, the co-creation of English inventors Sampson Mordan and Gabriel Riddle. Mechanical pencils, aided by the user, had a small rod which pushed the graphite rod down a tube of conforming diameter usually with a twist action mechanism via helical drive to the pencil’s point, and held them there. When done writing, the mechanism could be twisted the reverse way. Between 1822 to 1874, more than 160 patents were registered pertaining to a variety of improvements to such pencils. The first spring-loaded mechanical pencil was patented in 1877 and the twist-feed mechanism was developed in 1895. Some of these pencils are simple, some are fancy, with lead-storage compartments, erasers hidden inside the finial, or even finial-mounted engraved jewels; there was something for every income level. But until the early 20th century, they were generally all just plain, propelling pencils. They may be found in a bewildering variety of media: gold, silver, ivory, tortoiseshell, and there are numerous novelties, from guns, parasols, axes, creatures (great and small) and so on. The first major development was the propel-repel pencil. Whereas the previous incarnation of the pencil had the lead freely sliding in and out of a closely-fitted tube, a new innovation approached the problem a little differently. The end of the lead firmly fitted into a socket, and the socket—attached to a shuttle—moved up and down the length of the barrel. Unfortunately, when used up, the lead tended to break off, right at the socket. Then the only solution was to ream out the socket, or discard the pencil and buy a fresh one. Further development was required. This came in the 1930s. Rather than simply wedging the lead into a socket, a propelling rod was placed inside the socket; one which travels only far enough to push remnants of the lead out of the socket, doing so only when the mechanism is at the furthest point of travel along the barrel. This design was truly revolutionary, and is still in use in fine mechanical pencils today. It became eloquently known as the propel-repel-expel pencil. Needless to say, there are numerous variations and combinations of all three varieties. The slide- and screw-mechanism pencils from the early part of the 19th century are highly prized, as are the combination pen-pencils (like Grandpa’s) from later that century. Some had a pencil on one end and a pen on the other. Throughout the nineteenth century and into the 20th, Sampson Mordan and Co. remained the pre-eminent manufacturer in the UK. Miniature mechanical pencils were also popular. They were typically decorated with celluloid or enamel cases. Some telescoped, others were built into pocketknives. In the early 20th century, you could get everything from tricolour pencils to ones with calendars on their cases (these were usually made by Mordan, too). By the 20th century, even high-end retailers like Tiffany and Cartier were commissioning examples, often designed in Art Nouveau or Art-Deco styles. Collectible brands of 20th century pencils include Yard-O-Led (which boasted twelve 3in leads in the barrel, patented in 1934) and Wahl-Eversharp (founded by C R Keenan 1915, but taken over by Wahl 1918), which cased their pencils in metal and hard rubber, while Sheaffer and Waterman used hard colourful Bakelite. Of course, advertisers liked to put their logos and slogans on mechanical pencils too, especially during the 1930s and 1940s and these, even if quite cheaply made, are all the more collectible for it. Victorian pencils are so varied and attractive that many collectors refuse to stray into the following era in their collecting. At Bamford’s we recently sold a lot of three gilt metal ones – one chased, the others engine-turned, one with a seal top and one with a ring on the end for attachment to a châtelaine or similar for marking dance cards – for £22 against an estimate of £15-20. Base metal and non-exotic material ones are not expensive but can be very attractive and, of course, retain their utility as long as you want them to! These can also have amusing refinements, such as a Stanhope – a peephole at the top with a view of some beauty spot, or a portrait of a notable – or a seal end with an engraved armorial, enabling one to track down the original owner. Even in base metal the engine turning or chase-carving can be of respectable quality, and yet £20 will often buy you one at auction, although non-precious metal examples do tend to be sold in groups. Some are not only precious metal, but wonderfully attractive like the Mordan piglet pencil sold recently for £1,695
