Extremely Early Rare Vintage Retro Red Rotary Dial Tele Phone 801 Made By STC for PMG in 1962 With clear hanger tags
Has cord with plug. Excessively Slow return of dial , does have scratches and small crack on dial plate.
History of Telephone 801
Design began in 1961 on a new telephone. It was to be locally designed and built. It was heavily based on the "Assistant" phone from Bell Antwerp, but electronics and styling were completely reengineered. The aims were better transmission over long linesbetter reliability, and the ability to be completely made locally
The 801 was released to the public in January 1963, although there is anecdotal evidence suggesting some were released earlier because of the shortage of other phonesThe colours were Light Ivory, Mist Grey, Fern Green, Topaz Yellow and Lacquer RedBlack was added to the range laterParts were supplied by AWA, STC, and the Australian Post Office workshops. Initially dials were not made in Australia, so were imported from imported from European suppliers. They were the British Post Office BPO Dial No21 and Belgian BTM71708 and BTM71816. Because of the different layouts of the dials, it was necessary to supply each with an adapter ring to fit the basic 800 shell . The noticeable difference between these phones is in which number appears at the top of the dial. The adapter ring carried the number around the outside of the dialThis series was designated 801. Some years later when supplies of Australian-made dials became available, the adapter was dispensed with and the case remoulded to only fit the new standard dialThis had the numbers under the dial finger holes and the new series was designated 802Eventually the old carbon-granule transmitter was replaced with an electronic model, the 20E, marking the end of a technology that dated back nearly a hundred years
1963 - Initially the case did not have handset retainers (the little bumps moulded into the casing in front of the switch hook plungers)The transmitter cap has only one ring of holes, and a centre holeCapacitors are the large cylindrical type mounted on circuit boards, mostly marked "Raynor". The first models were provided by STC and may be unbrandedonly carrying the PMG Serial and Item number e.g. S1/201From the dates on the moulding marks inside the cases, production of mouldings began in 1961
In 1964 the design changed so this is an early unit