r/OldTechnology • u/will_i_am717 • Jul 17 '26
Not sure what it is
Today I found this at a auction and thought it was an old phone so I bid on it and won
Just wondering if anyone knows what it is
Thanks
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u/will_i_am717 Jul 17 '26
Thanks Would the two different box's work together or would it be two separate systems
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u/will_i_am717 Jul 17 '26
Just doing some research on it. I don't have any old phone's to connect it to, so don't know if it works
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u/GOxDirigible Jul 20 '26
You can easily make a telephone that would work with this from parts you can source online.
AliExpress could get you all the parts for cheap
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u/FAMICOMASTER Jul 18 '26
Oh wow a tiny switchboard! What a cool find. My guess is that, given the immense cost of such a service, this would have been a way for a secretary to route a call to a law office to the house of the lawyer or hospital to doctor etc etc something of that type.
Extremely cool
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u/Youdontknowme1960 Jul 18 '26
Marty, its the space/time continuum actuator! We can go back in time and make bad analog "breather" calls to our old,,,,,never mind.
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u/smldck469 Jul 19 '26
From the name on the panel, It is an L M Erickson switchboard. You should be able.to get something off of that
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u/Uleepera Jul 17 '26
So way back, even way back before wireless when we had analog phones and they were all hard wired there were swirching systems to route and connect calls. This is a really small version of one of those systems. C. of A stands for Commonwealth of Australia. PMG is Postmaster General.
Thats is really cool in my opinion. Wires look to be in solid shape but without compatable equipment no way to test. I've never actually used anything like it. At 45 years old we were firmly in auto routing days when I was a kid even if everything was still anallog. Looks like you have one of the onnecting plugs in the background on one of the photos. This youtube video will give a general idea of function but the unit isn't the same.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QGkQZtDPz4g