Old Bakelite 1900-1906 Payphone Transmitter Mouthpiece Western Electric

Description

Old Bakelite 1900-1906 Payphone Transmitter Mouthpiece Western Electric  -   With two chips, with brass threads and thick rim. NOT a repro!! This one looks like Western Electric threads. It also has the slots on the thread end. Up until they began using mouthpieces, you talked into a hole in the wooden front on a small box. Probably somewhere between 1885 and 1900. Having been born in 1935 and engaged into telephone history since 1972, I've exchanged ideas and opinions with many collectors. One friend-collector told me that his part time job while in High School was to clean these in a pool hall. People would pack their chewing tobacco into these things. Yes, they were unscrewed and cleaned out; and thus were damaged, especially dropped. And yes, there were many ways to sanitize these; and yes, they were also made of glass and porcelain. And also red and green Bakelite. These are now prized collector pieces. The chip/s: wood filler wood dough, putty, bondo, fiberglass putty. It all works. Mix black die or paint into it. Then smooth down. In the mid 1970s, Ricky Cotton would get pretty black smoothing these out on a lathe or drill press. If you do this wear a mask. And often they would get spray can painted. England made Bakelite has asbestos dust. More about mouthpieces in the telephone history book called “Telephone History Scrapbook” on ebay for in digital form. Ray Peterson ran a telephone company by himself at 80 years old in 1972. Some say he had a sizable collection/accumulation of old mouthpieces. Finally, he sold them (in 1972 and 73) for each except the odd ones at each. Odd mouthpieces nowadays can fetch between 0 and 0. In 1990s or 80s, Jon reproduced a few of these. Here at Phonecoinc we can patch, smooth and polish or paint this one for additional via Ebay for you if you choose. There were over 400 telephone name brands and this mouthpiece may interchange with some. The brass mouthpieces and thick rim are characteristics unmistakably specifically Western Electric
payphone
mouthpieces, and likely used from 1912 and well into the 1930s. It is heavy and therefore solid brass with a Bakelite coating. In the 1970s, there was an effort to reproduce these out of plastic but not with brass threads.
Please be sure to read the description Sold As IS; and if you have any questions please call us at Phoneco. No returns. We are not responsible for your mistake for not reading our description.
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