Do you recognise this: vintage wooden box for electronics...?

**oneten** · 24th April 2019, 09:43 PM

Inherited this wooden box, was hoping someone might recognise it and know what it is used for.

Has slots machined into the top and bottom side of the base, with holes drilled through between the two sides, much like an electronics "breadboard". The lid has GR stamped into the outside, and A223 stamped on the inside of the lid. Note that the hinges had wires soldered to them, and there are terminals still fitted to the outside.

Dimensions: lid is 15cm wide x 20.5cm tall, and box is 14cm deep.

Gut feeling is that it is from early part of last century.

Any ideas?

**goingbush** · 24th April 2019, 10:01 PM

It looks like a PMG Inter-switch , has a knob one the front and two bells, with a magneto inside . Dating 1930-40's.

something like this ,

**goingbush** · 24th April 2019, 10:04 PM

OOPS, I managed to zoom your photos, its actually an old wooden wall telephone, I can see the hole on the side is oblong , where the switch hooks for the receiver was placed to hang up the call. still has the pair of bells on the front, the other front hole is for the microphone.

**Tins** · 24th April 2019, 10:20 PM

I grew up in a house that had one, but it had 8 extensions. There were also bell pushes in all the rooms, but no one ever came, no matter how many times you pushed the button.

It's an old telephone thingy. Lovely, but probably not worth a lot. They were everywhere. We used to have batteries in a box that powered the phone system. How many of you remember that?

**oneten** · 24th April 2019, 10:28 PM

Thanks goingbush.

But now you have me wondering what an inter-switch does (I at least know what PMG is), couldn't find a description on the net (except for Cisco fibrelinks, which I am pretty sure it predates...).

**oneten** · 24th April 2019, 10:36 PM

Originally Posted by johntins

I grew up in a house that had one, but it had 8 extensions. There were also bell pushes in all the rooms, but no one ever came, no matter how many times you pushed the button.

It's an old telephone thingy. Lovely, but probably not worth a lot. They were everywhere. We used to have batteries in a box that powered the phone system. How many of you remember that?

Yeah, I didn't think it would be worth anything, inherited was probably the wrong word, it wasn't a formal inheritance, found it in the shed..

It has interested me for a few years but never knew what it was, and had never seen a breadboard created like that until I saw this.

It'll come in handy, can never have too much storage..

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 25th April 2019, 06:30 AM

Is it a (PMG) Linesman box?

**oka374** · 25th April 2019, 06:35 AM

As Goingbush said it is an old wall telephone case, two bells at the top and a mouthpiece in the large hole towards the bottom. The slot in the side is for the switchhooks where the bell receiver hung.
I used to work on them when I started my PMG apprenticeship and still have one hanging on the wall here.

**JDNSW** · 25th April 2019, 08:08 AM

Agreed. A wall telephone box. Commonplace in rural areas in my younger days.

**Bigbjorn** · 25th April 2019, 09:08 AM

Definitely a PMG item from the days of manual exchanges. The GR is George Rex. Much government property was marked this way with the monarch's emblem. EIIR was used widely until quite recent times. We had a wall phone in Winton when I was a boy. You cranked the handle and the exchange would answer and ask for the number you wished to be connected to. In major towns the exchange was usually in the post office. In rural areas the exchange was often in someones house and had opening hours. There was an after hours charge if you wished to make calls outside these hours. Relatives farmed near Clifton and the exchange was in a neighbours kitchen. Your listing in a rural directory was by exchange. My rellies were on Narkanda exchange. Talk about obfuscation. Narkanda was a locality name that had fallen into disuse except for the telephone exchange. At Maryvale then the post office and exchange was in the front room of a house. The only public telephone in the village was on the veranda. I remember the big dry cell batteries used to power the phones.

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