Opening up this telephone I found a great surprise! Well, great from a collectors point of view anyway.
I bought this Heemaf 1955 last Saturday at a big radio flea market. Although there were hundreds of stalls, there were not many phones. I was almost ready to go home, when I spotted this phone. It looked like a common Heemaf 1955. Because it had a great shine and the price aws reasonable, I bought it.
On the train home I inspected it further, and I noticed the dial was a bit strange. The later versions of this model do come with plastic dials, but this one was a bit different. Firstly the fingerstop was hooked instead of straight, and secondly the dial centre was colored black on the inside, instead of clear plastic with a black paper insert. Also normally there would have been a notch, to pop the dial centre out which was missing on this one.
I thought nothing of it. Perhaps it was just a variation of a standard dial, one had not seen before. Or perhaps it was a replacement done after the phone left the PTT inventory.
Once home I opened it up to look inside and found a great surprise. The phone was indeed a common Heemaf 1955, but on the back of the dial was a big red sticker. It read:
NIET OPENEN
PROEFSERIE
2e HALFJAAR 1962
BIJ DEFECT OP
TE ZENDEN AAN
CATF-AFD. TF C1
St. PAULUSSTR. 4
Lsdm
Translation:
DO NOT OPEN
TESTSERIE
2nd SEMESTER 1962
IN CASE OF DEFECT
SEND TO
CATF-DEPT. TF C1
St. Paulstr. 4
Lsdm
Apparantly this dial was a field test prototype for this particular design. A regular PTT mechanic was not supposed to open this dial, in case of malfunction.
The mechanism is a well known design by Krone and was later used on the T65, in particular those made by Krone and Heemaf. That is except for the odd dial centre and hooked fingerstop.
This may have been a field trial as a preparation for the introduction of the T65, in 1965. I will enquire further. In any case, I found a really nice piece of telephone history.
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