I N S I D E THE AUTOMATIC ELECTRIC DIAL P A Y TELEPHONE ... ******************************************************************* A »SUPER KEY« opens the coin door AND the telephone: For the COIN DOOR the key has to placed in full into its slot. For opening the TELEPHONE-LID, the key has to pushed in half until turnable. REMARK: The brown coil-cord connects the rotary dial in the lid. The open lid shows the coin shoots and the TWO GONGS - the left one is a SPIRAL with deep sound, the right a common BELL with high sound. A QUARTER (25 ¢) hits the spiral. A NICKEL (5 ¢) hits the bell. A DIME (10 ¢) hits the bell twice. Wrong coins come back in the RETURN SLOT ... ... The missing COIN-BOX is made of brass sheets soldered together. From Historical Remarks ... =================================================================== William Gray received a patent on Aug.13, 1889 for a coin operated device to work the telephone. Later in 1905 Gray developed a pay station with coin identification that the operator could hear: Coins inserted in slots fell upon gongs and bells and the distinct sounds were transmitted with Elisha Gray's "Harmonic Telegraph" device. If (e.g.) a Quarter Coin was dropped into a SilverDollar Slot, NO RESONANCE was recognized by the operator. Therefore every pay station had the instruction: +-----------------------------------------------------+ | DO NOT DEPOSIT COINS UNTIL OPERATOR ASKS FOR IT | +-----------------------------------------------------+ Gray founded the GRAY TELEPHONE AND PAY STATION CO. in Hartford, Connecticut which held a monopoly on the pay station well into the 20th century. 1948 the company was aquired by AUTOMATIC ELECTRIC. Back to the PAY PHONE Main Page impressum: ******************************************************************* © C.HAMANN http://public.BHT-Berlin.de/hamann 11/11/09 |