Gents,
A guy on Garage Journal sent me pictures of these lamp assemblies. Can someone identify them/tell me what they were used for/if there is anything I could use them for? Thanks!

I seem to remember something with protectors, but I wouldn't bet the ranch on it.

BTW, the boxes they're in are those apparatus mounting boxes (107?) that you were asking about. They were also (mostly) used for 1A KTUs.

Sam

They are called resistance lamps (sometimes called ballast lamps) and they are inserted in series with ringing supply leads (manual or machine) so that when a called phone goes off-hook during the ringing cadence, a short circuit is not presented across the ringing supply.

The ones in your photos were probably from a small manual or automatic PBX installation, and they are mounted in type 105 boxes. The ones on my 701 PBX are mounted on a 23" plate above the ringing machines.

The earlier ones had screw bases, and the later ones had solder lugs in Bakelite (or some other kind of black plastic) bases.

Type 12

Type 13

BSP 032-500-501

So, if the lamps are in those boxes, how does one see them?

They weren't meant to be seen. They were installed in series in a circuit to provide a "shock absorber" for when a station went off-hook during a ringing cycle so that a short wasn't placed on the central ringing generator. The lamp would glow, absorbing the ring voltage during the ring cycle. It is difficult to explain, but they provided a major improvement in ring voltage issues, like having it backfeed into DC circuits causing relay chatter.

Thanks, Ed. I thought my description was sufficient, but there's always what we call "Out of the mouths of babes."

Jeff, you're too clever for this business. You are absolutely correct: they are called lamps, so they must light up. I guess they should have been called "tubes."

However, if you read the BSP reference that I included in my first answer, you will read that if one is glowing, that indicates a fault. I guess the guy who engineered that particular installation hadn't read the BSP.

BTW, can you tell us (A) if there is any number(s) stamped on the brackets, and (B) what the specific application of these boxes were?

Sam or Arthur, can you use these? As I said, the pictures were sent to me from a guy on another forum who knows I'm into phones. Otherwise I'll tell the guy to scrap em.

Thanks for the info!!

Hi Jeff-

You really don't want to scrap them since I am certain they have value to other collectors and you would probably be surprised just how much they would fetch on the e-Place. It would be nice to put the proceeds from a sale into a kitty for that new testset or other new toy.

A good example of the mystery crossbar pbx that Carl Navarro recently found. While most regard it as junk, it is likely to garner several grand.

I noticed that the views associated with his posting has since sky-rocketed with the recent buzz and links to it have circulated about it the collectors websites.

So you're saying I should get them and try to flip em

No, you should get them and give them to that old guy who sends you 1A2 stuff.

More than anything I thought you and others should be aware of the potential value some of these items may have. All of us have chucked what we considered to be junk into the trash but sometimes it is incredible what collectors will pay for them.

while it is worthy and charitable to give to those who are preserving out telecom heritage, in this economy some of our fellow phone techs may be the ones in need of some extra cash.

This is not to discourage donations but keep in mind that sometimes the recipient may end-up flipping them himself.

As in the example I previously cited, if Carl decided to donate the crossbar pbx to a collector that is fine; however, if he is not aware that it has a potential worth of up to 5K and if he were in need of some extra cash for his children's education or another family members immediate needs then it would be a shame to give it away to a collector who may eventually flip it himself once he has tired of it.

Now that I have dictated what others should do, I have to admit to being hypocritical since I often donate collectable items to aspiring telephone collectors at our phone shows or in response to request that has been posted on our collecting listserves and have rarely sold anything either face-to-face or on eBay, in part, because I can't bring myself to sell something that I used to throw away when I worked for the telephone company.

However, a number of years ago I woke-up to the fact that some were abusing my largess when I gave away some items of moderate value to a collector who“just had to have” them when, even before I was out of earshot he told a fellow collector how much he thought he could sell them for on eBay. While I still donate items, I try to be a bit more aware of the circumstances before turning loose of them.

Sorry for rambling on!