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A couple of years ago I bought this Heemaf 1931 on line. Not that I needed one. I already had several of them. But this one had e TEFAG dial. That made it interesting. It would come in very handy for restoring an old TEFAG telephone or some other German phone from the 1920. Because although the Heemaf 1931 wall version was only made from 1934, the dial probably predates it.
I do not remember paying too much for it. And the seller did not indicate where he got it from or that he tinkered with it. Not that I asked.
Also, emailing with the seller, he must have seen that I promote my telephone website under my emails, but he did not indicate that he was a collector or something like that.
So, a normal buy from a common civilian. And everything indicated that it was farm fresh or dachbodenfrisch (attick fresh) as the Germans say.
And sure enough, when it arrive it turned out to be a very nice Heemaf 1931 too. In good condition, dirty but it would clean up well.
It had the RT logo on the side, of the Rijks Telefoondienst which existed until 1935.
So the phone was made in 1934 or 1935 and sure enough the original capacitor was inside, with the production date of april 1935 on it.
It had a Siemens & Halske handset, as would be correct for this phone with original mouth piece missing and a newer earcap. The handset cord may have been replaced.
Unfortunately the wires of the TEFAG dial were cut.
I did wonder how that TEFAG dial ended up on this phone, guessing that perhaps the Rijkstelefoondienst repaired it or it was done later during PTT times, perhaps during the after war years when materials were scarce. But why had somebody cut the wires? I wish people did not do that!
Anyway, I removed the TEFAG dial and spent a morning reconstructing the right model dial from my spares box. Great fun. 🙂
So, it looked original again. Fine. Good job. Put the right model ear cap and speaking cap back on , and it looks the business again!
As a collector you often do not know much of the history of a phone, where it has been, who it belonged to and more imported what has been done to it. Some things are obvious, like and old number card indicating where it was used, a refurbishment label, a calibration strip tucked in with the dial mechanism, and sometimes the seller tells me where it is from. Like that Modell 36 telephone I have, that the seller told me her father rescued from the skip at the Amsterdam energy company, years ago.
And sometimes I ask about it, when the phone merits it, but often I do not. I see so many phones, I would not be able to remember it all.
So it is true for this telephone too: I do not know much about its history other that that it was made for the RT in 1935, it got an upgrade by PTT (new receiver cap and receiver) and one day I bought it. Until………………..
I had a closer look at this picture today. I saw it before and never noticed a very interesting detail. It is from an auction by “Het Venduehuis” . This auction in march 2011 is notorious. The Dutch National museum of communication sold off some of its surplus telephone equipment. But it was done in a clumsy manner and without good publicity. I missed it myself, to my great regret.
The amount money it brought in was dissapointing as many lots were sold cheaply a far below market value.
The pictures are still on line and looking at them can be very informative. And so I noticed this Heemaf telephone with a yellow sticker.
I knew that sticker! It was the same as on my Heemaf 1931! So I looked up mine and behold, the sticker is exaclty the same, with an identical tear! (I tore of another bit on the right, to check the paint under the sticker).
Apparantly this was the same phone. It once was in the collection of the museum of communication. Please notice there is a Siemens dial on it and not a TEFAG dial. That must have been put on afterwards.
I guess a previous owner really wanted that speaking cap and Siemens and Halske dial for something. Good thing he did. That TEFAG dial is much more valuable.
A pity though that he took it from a perfectly good original telephone.
What do you think?[:]
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