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Berliner TelephonesThis listing is work-in-progress. It will updated as further information becomes available, and it may also wrongly identify some telephones. Like Ericsson handsets, the Berliner transmitter is often the only identifiable part on a phone. Collectors will then tend to call the phone a Berliner even though it may have been made by someone else. I will be grateful for any further information on these phones. Many of the earlier phones used parts from Siemens & Halske, such as generators and receivers. Berliner's only original part was, after all, the transmitter. It was sold to other manufacturers, and was also available mounted on a circular wooden plug - intended. no doubt, to update Blake transmitters as they failed. Ericssons and Siemens & Halske had similar fittings available.
Left: 1885 three-box model
Left: Long Distance railways phone with 3-magnet generator and two Siemens receivers
Left: Unusual "Billiard" phone with the small transmitter mounted on an early handset. 1890s?
Left: Typical top box of a twin box phone, or a stand-alone magneto wall phone with the batteries mounted elsewhere. 1930s?
Left: Berliner's version of Ericsson's skeletal phone. Note the simplified magnet construction.
Left: an alternate version fitted with the smaller transmitter on a standard German handset. Could also have been made by Faller.
Left: "Tin Box" style with two cranks and Berliner transmitter. Possibly around 1910.
The next group of telephones are Berliners from their various "foreign" factories, made to suit local preferences, but may also be from other manufacturers. The small transmitter was very popular in France, fitted to their "cornet" handset. This style of handset was easy to sterilize, to help prevent the spread of tuberculosis.
Left: Berliner "Cathedral" from France.
Left: French telephone, possibly Berliner, using a Berliner transmitter on the handset. Around 1900-1910
Left: Berliner or possibly S.I.T. using the "cornet" handset, mid 1910s.
Left: British Berliner battery-signalling telephone from Marsh. This was made in a range of configurations - with or without bell, and with a watchcase receiver as shown, a spoon receiver, or a Bell double-pole receiver.
Left: Berliner, Paris, approx 1910. A similar telephone with a thicker, tapered column and a circular base was made by Breguet.
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Left:
Typical twin box wall magneto telephone, mostly using Siemens & Halske parts.
Note the Siemens receiver. In Britain this phone was sold by Marsh & Son
, but was fitted with a Bell double-pole receiver. About 1886 - 1910.
Left: Made
by Tefag for Fuld, 1918
Left:
Unknown French phone
