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Old 15th Jan 2017, 12:21 pm   #1
Tractorfan
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Smile Button 'A' call boxes abroad.

A thread popped up on a Facebook group I'm a member of reminiscing about the old UK press button 'A' or 'B' call boxes in the days of yore.
It set me wondering in the same ones were ever used in the British Commonwealth back in the day?
Cheers, Pete.
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Old 15th Jan 2017, 2:15 pm   #2
Pellseinydd
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Default Re: Button 'A' call boxes abroad.

They certainly were. Hall Telephone Accessories Ltd who originally made them (later taken over by Elliot Automation who became GEC Elliot Automation) even had a unit in Australia. I have a traditional style A/B box but with a handset on the lefthandside and a dial mounted on top, which I bought from New Zealand. The same units were used by Jersey Telephones and in Malta. I've also got a later version A/B box from New Zealand but it is mounted in a case similar to the Renters 'Pay on Answer' Box Coin Collecting 700 but with handset on switchhook on LH side and dial on top. Similar ones were used in Ireland by their P&T and in Australia. I've also got what is a buttonless A/B box in a similar case but the mechanism is that of an A/B box but the functions of the buttons are operated by relay type mechanisms - the end of the original A/B box mechanism! It dates from the 1980's by Hall Telephone Acc/GEC Elliot Automation in Australia from whence I bought it on eBay. I've only ever seen one other one on eBay. The traditional style GPO A/B box was also used by the Irish P&T - some being ex GPO ones as we went to STD POA boxes. Most of those that come up on eBay are ex Irish decimal ones brought back to the UK in the early 1990's. Genuine UK decimal ones have two slots - 2p at the front and 10p (old two shilling/florin) at the rear (I have the penultimate A/B box from the BT network which was in use until July 1994 and that has old 5p at the front and 10p at the rear). The Irish ones all have 5p (old shilling size) at the front and 2p at the rear with either 1p or 10p (two shilling size) in the centre position. Most are sold as 'GPO' on eBay but are actually Irish P&T. The Irish ones worked with a Telephone 711 and didn't use a Bellset 33 or similar.
Ian J
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Old 16th Jan 2017, 6:12 am   #3
Synchrodyne
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Default Re: Button 'A' call boxes abroad.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pellseinydd View Post
I have a traditional style A/B box but with a handset on the lefthandside and a dial mounted on top, which I bought from New Zealand. The same units were used by Jersey Telephones and in Malta. I've also got a later version A/B box from New Zealand but it is mounted in a case similar to the Renters 'Pay on Answer' Box Coin Collecting 700 but with handset on switchhook on LH side and dial on top.
Yes, the A/B box was the norm in New Zealand through the 1960s and into the 1970s at least. My recollection of them goes back to the mid/late 1950s, although I suspect that they had probably been around for quite a while before then. More vague is my recollection that they generally had left-side mounted handsets. (Although maybe that’s why I almost always use my left hand to hold telephone receivers.)

Cheers,
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Old 16th Jan 2017, 11:32 am   #4
G3VKM_Roger
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Default Re: Button 'A' call boxes abroad.

Pretty sure they were using A/B boxes in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, in 1973. I was there with the old HMS Endurance at that time and I made a couple of calls to a radio ham friend in Stanley from a box near the quay. I was in Stanley again in 2009 but don't recall any boxes other than two outside the main PO and a photo shows what look like modern payphones inside them.

Regards,

Roger

Last edited by G3VKM_Roger; 16th Jan 2017 at 11:37 am. Reason: Additional info.
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Old 16th Jan 2017, 8:33 pm   #5
Pellseinydd
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Default Re: Button 'A' call boxes abroad.

The Falkland Island system in Stanley was magneto until the 1989 (I've got one of their Telephone Directories from mid1980's somewhere.) Then it was upgraded to a modern digital system with five figure numbers starting with a '2' for landlines (all 1200 or so of them) and '5' for mobiles . So with a magneto system it would have been a A/B style coinbox with 200 type phone but no A/B buttons as it was postpayment - 'Box Coin Collecting No 16'. The Islands' public telephone system had been run by Cable & Wireless from 1974 - Cable & Wireless had been part of the UK's GPO since being nationalised just after 2nd WW. Hence there would certainly have been a 'GPO'/PO input until C&W was privatised at the end of 1981.
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